


The Love of a Cat

by Kedreeva



Series: The Fourth Gull [3]
Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Cats, Everyone Is Alive, Fix It Fic, Fluff, Haven, Multi, Oskarverse, Pets, Threegulls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-05-11 20:52:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 37,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5641513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kedreeva/pseuds/Kedreeva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of how Duke Crocker met Oskar the cat.</p><p>This story takes place within the universe and prior to the events of The Fourth Gull.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

* * *

**"What greater gift than the love of a cat?" - Charles Dickens**

* * *

 

 

            The first time he sees the thing, it is slinking around his dumpster looking for scraps it will not find. It is a bony, wretched-looking creature, its grey fur matted and dirty even bathed in the glow of the full, midsummer moon. A half-dozen yards sit between them when he accidentally draws the cat’s attention, and it regards him with eyes that reflect the moonlight like mirrors.

            Duke’s hesitation lasts only a heartbeat before he pops the lid of his carryout container, the chicken he’d just cooked himself in the Gull’s kitchen sending steam curling into the air. Gently, he tears the lid free from the bottom. The meat is rich, too rich for such a starved belly to handle in quantity, so he dumps only three of the thin slices into the top before setting it on the ground.

            Through it all, the cat remains frozen where it stands, watching.

            Without waiting, Duke climbs into the driver’s seat of his truck and closes the door. The cat flinches but does not flee, nose in the air to catch the scent of the warm food. Shortly, the light inside the car shuts off, and it is only minutes more before the cat edges close enough to snatch one of the chicken pieces and bolt like it expects to be attacked.

            Duke’s heart gives a twist. He knows that feeling.

            Though it takes a while for the cat to return, takes a while for it to grab the second and then the third pieces, it does. Duke waits, unwilling to start up his car and frighten it off. When the last slice has disappeared, he clambers out of the car and lets himself into the Gull one more time. In the kitchen, he cooks and crumbles a quarter cup of lean beef, presses out as much of the grease as he can, and then takes it outside on one of the restaurant’s small plates.

            The cat is long gone, or at least well hidden, by the time he returns to the outdoors. He doesn’t bother looking for it, isn’t sure it would even be back that night or not, but he leaves the plate in the same location as the lid. He spends the drive home telling himself he is not trying to think of names.


	2. Chapter 2

            A text message wakes him the following morning at an hour unreasonable for consciousness. He fumbles for his phone, grumbling but worried, because the only people who ever message him at this hour know his schedule. They don’t message him unless it’s important.

            The screen wobbles as he drags a finger across it, and then Audrey’s name appears above the words _I found a plate from the restaurant on the ground outside, but everything was locked up. I put the dish in my sink._

            Duke’s laugh is hoarse with sleep and he throws one arm over his eyes to block out the sunlight.

            After he is finally on his feet for the day, he brings Audrey coffee to make up for the confusion. She doesn’t ask what the plate was about, and he doesn’t tell her beyond that he had put it there. He’s not sure he wants to explain that he is feeding a stray, not sure if it would seem weird to her or not.

            Later, on his way to the Gull, he picks up a small bag of cat food and a pair of plastic bowls, ones that will not rust in the seaside weather. The girl behind the counter advises him to pick up a couple small cans of wet food and a bottle of wormer. “Strays always have worms,” she tells him as she rings him up. He doesn’t like the sound of that.

            He doesn’t want to sneak the food and supplies into the restaurant’s office, even though it’s his restaurant and if he wanted to he could bring in a dump truck of cat food and no one would tell him no. Instead, he leaves it all in the foot well of his passenger seat.

            When the last of the patrons and staff have been herded from the Gull for the night, Duke pulls the cat food into the office. He fills one bowl with clean, cold water and the other with a half a cup of kibble. Before he takes the bowls out, he closes up the bag and stashes it under his desk.

            He checks over his restaurant once, thoroughly, before locking the doors and bringing the pet dishes to the edge of the porch. He sets them in the same place as the night before, just at the edge of the light, and then retreats a ways down the porch to sit at the closest table with his own dinner.

            It doesn’t take long for the stray to appear, moon-silver eyes on him as it hovers at the border of safety. He pretends he isn’t looking, does his level best to look absorbed in his own meal, and that seems to do the trick. The tabby approaches the bowl, gives a cautious sniff to the dry pellets, and then begins to eat so fast that Duke is afraid it will accidentally inhale something it shouldn’t.

            As soon as it has cleaned the bowl, bolted down every last pellet, it darts away, leaving the water untouched. Duke figures that is fine; in a seaside town there are probably plenty of watering holes.

            He clears his place, wipes down the table, and heads home.


	3. Chapter 3

            Duke isn’t sure what he is expecting out of his brief exchanges with the stray. It is not companionship, as the first few days are nothing more than eat-and-bolt greetings. It is not pest control; the cat wouldn’t be so skinny if there were enough pest animals in residence to require control.

            It is not until over a week into eating his dinner alone at one of the outdoor tables that Duke realizes what he is hoping for. The cat pauses after eating, licking its whiskers and taking just a moment to stare at him. It has put on weight even in the short time he has been feeding it; already its hips are less pronounced, its ribs beginning to fade into its fur as they should. As it looks at him, a sharp feeling of being judged buzzes under Duke’s skin.

            He isn’t sure why the opinion of such a ragged animal matters to him, but the rush of warmth that chases the sound of its meow tells him that it does.

            The next night, he eats his dinner on the ground, leaning against the Gull and waiting. When the cat appears, it freezes, takes note of his new position, and then disappears. Disappointment flutters in Duke’s gut, even though that is exactly the response he had expected. He doesn’t leave, finishes his dinner, and just as he is about to clean up to go back to the  _Rouge_ , he notices the cat.

            It meows at him, standing yards away, as if telling him to move.

            “I’m not moving,” he tells it, feeling both silly and wrong; he will absolutely move eventually, has to go home sometime and it’s not like he’s going to pack up the _cat’s_ food when he goes. “I won’t hurt you.”

            For another few, long minutes, it weaves in a nervous pattern, eyes on him. It gets just a little closer with every weave, until it is close enough to reach the bowl. When he makes no move to get up to leave, the cat begins to eat, faster than it probably should.

            The moment it has finished, it bolts.


	4. Chapter 4

            It takes over a week before the cat stops bolting after ever meal. Duke isn’t sure he expected it to ever stop, isn’t sure  _ why _ he keeps spending his early evening sitting in the cold waiting for a mangy, feral stray to come eat its dinner in font of him. He tells himself it isn’t to guard the food, to ensure that  _ his _ stray is the one who gets to eat, but he knows that is probably a lie.

            This night, he is trying something different. Although he can only barely see his cat’s ribs, and its spine is no longer a ridge, it doesn’t appear to be gaining any further weight. He had remembered the pet store lady's advice to buy bottle of liquid dewormer and a few cans of wet food and so almost an hour ago, he had thoroughly mixed the two together in the correct dose, and placed the small plate of it where he normally put the bowl of dry chow.

            When the cat finally arrives, it looks worse for wear. Part of its ear is torn and there is blood dried in the greasy fur of its face. Duke holds very still as it comes in closer, holds his breath when the cat looks between him and the new kind of food. It has obviously been in some kind of fight, and Duke isn’t sure it will want to eat even if the food hadn’t changed.

            Though it takes a few minutes of indecision, the cat finally arranges itself to be able to eat and keep a wary eye on Duke at the same time. Duke pretends he isn’t watching by raising his book in front of his face. The food seems to go over well; it is gone in just a few moments.

            This time, however, the cat doesn’t bolt. It stands, licking its chops clean of the sticky gravy in which the food had been slathered. Duke watches, fascinated, as it licks a paw and scrubs it over its face, rubs hard over the bloodied area. He’s pretty sure that cats are supposed to be clean, but he hasn’t had a lot of cause to interact with them previously.

            Without taking too much time to think about it, Duke sets his book down and holds out one hand. When the cat goes on high alert as his motion, he makes a soft  _ tch tch tch _ noise and says soothingly: “It’s okay.”

            The cat regards him for a moment nose in the air as if it will be able to smell his intent - and Duke is not entirely sure that it can’t - and then clambers to its feet. Instead of coming to him, it gives a long, languid stretch and a wide, toothy yawn. Then and  _ only _ then, it turns to look at him again.

            Duke swallows as it crosses the few feet between them, holds his breath as it hesitates, green eyes shifting between his face and his hands.

            Gently, it rubs its cheek along Duke’s statue-still fingers.

            And then it is gone.


	5. Chapter 5

            By the end of the next week, the cat has started to look as if it is truly recovering and Duke’s absence in the evening has been noted more than once. He doesn’t want to tell Audrey or Nathan that he’s been sitting alone in the cold, dark after-hours of the Gull waiting for a stray cat to possibly come eat in front of him. It seems weird, and he’s not sure they’ll get why it is  _ important _ .

            He just knows that  _ it is _ . It is important every time the cat rubs its cheek against his fingers, every time it arches its back into the palm of his hand. It’s important to Duke that this little scrap of a creature, abandoned and deemed worthless, know that  _ someone _ cares for it. That it will, despite whatever circumstances put it into this situation, have at least one good meal in its belly every day and the touch of one kind hand.

            “You need a name,” he tells it as he watches it clean its face from its last dose of dewormer soft food. It doesn’t look at him as he considers a variety of names. When it has finished, it winds over close to him, lets him stroke a hand down its back. He cannot feel its spine anymore. “How about Oskar? I did find you by the garbage.”

            When the cat turns to rub his cheek against him, his fingertips brush Oskar’s throat, and he can feel the rumble of a nearly silent purr. He smiles.

            “Oskar it is, then,” he says softly.

            Somehow, the name makes it seem like a more permanent arrangement, and Duke allows himself the space to fall just a little bit in love.


	6. Chapter 6

            He knows that he cannot keep this secret forever, and if he is honest with himself, it is a relief the night that Audrey catches him waiting for his strange, wild companion. She’s been staying with Nathan most nights, or coming home long before closing time at the Gull, so they haven’t been in the same place at the same time. Both nights that he went back to Nathan’s house early with them, he snuck out in time to catch the last few minutes of his restaurant closing up.

            Tonight, Audrey caught a late shift, filling in for someone else spur-of-the-moment. He knows that she could have gone to Nathan’s like she’d been doing, but he also knows that she hates waking him when they have opposite shifts. He appreciates her concern; ever since Nathan started to feel again, he has been much quicker to get grouchy for lack of sleep. Duke knows he doesn’t sleep as well as he used to when aches and pains, touch and movement couldn’t wake him.

            Duke tries to look innocent when Audrey parks her car, turns off the headlights, and comes to stand towering over him. “You have a bed, you know,” she tells him. “In fact, you have three beds and several couches.”

            He laughs, and pats the ground next to him. “I know,” he says, because he does. And he misses them, is grateful to faceplant into his bed after seeing Oskar every night.

            She takes a seat beside him, still in her work clothes, and leans against his arm. Duke isn’t sure that Oskar will come in after hearing her car, isn’t sure that he will come close enough to eat if Audrey is there, but he will wait a while longer anyway.

            “Is that cat food?” Audrey asks in a hushed voice, apparently noticing the bowls. “Duke Crocker, are you feeding stray animals outside your restaurant instead of-”

            He hushes her with a little shoulder nudge and she makes an indignant sound, though she quiets and settles into their impromptu stake out. He thinks she is just about asleep by the time Oskar pads up to the bowls and startles when he notices the newcomer.

            “It’s okay,” Duke soothes, one of his hands over one of Audrey’s. “She’s a friend, see?”

            “Duke, it can’t understand you,” Audrey murmurs, but she holds out one hand, tips of her dainty fingers wiggling in invitation.

            “His name is Oskar,” Duke says, making the soft _tch tch tch_ that Oskar has come to trust.

            “Hello, Oskar,” Audrey says, as if on reflex.

            Oskar, for his part, is unimpressed. He watches the two of them from several feet away and for the first time since this began, he leaves without touching the food. Duke sighs and pulls Audrey’s hand to his lips, brushes a soft kiss to her skin, and then disentangles himself in order to stand.

            “Thought that might happen,” Duke explains as he offers his hand to help Audrey up. She takes it and he can see the disappointment in her eyes. “He’s pretty skittish still.”

            “If we go, do you think he’ll come back and eat?” she asks.

            “That’s what I’m hoping,” he says, and then nods toward her apartment and raises his eyebrows in question.

            She smiles, grip tightening a little on his hand. “I don’t have anywhere to be in the morning,” she tells him.

            He glances once more at the untouched food, and then follows her upstairs.

 

((

 

            She is fumbling to get her key in the lock when Duke presses up behind her and she has to catch herself against the door with one arm and a laugh. He noses into her hair, huffs warm against her neck as he slides one arm around her, the other going to the door for support. Her fingers find his forearm to steady herself.

            “Duke,” she says, aiming for chiding and landing somewhere in the realm breathlessly amused.

            “Audrey,” he says back in exactly the tone she’d wanted to use. He kisses the shell of her ear, the hollow of her jaw, fingers sliding along her shirt.

            She closes her eyes for a second, indulging in the sensation of his fingers finding bare skin at her midriff. “You have to let me open the door,” she tells him, even though they both know there’s no reason for that to be true.

            Instead of answering, he makes a noncommittal noise and rocks his body forward, pressing all of his lean lines against her soft curves. She forgets to breathe for a second, lets him gently pull her closer to him for just a heartbeat.

            “It’s not technically public,” Duke murmurs against her cheek, hand sneaking lower. She huffs a soft noise, adjusts her stance just slightly and enjoys the heat that flushes under her skin when he touches her. The curve of his smile is warm against the crook of her neck. “We don’t have to go in if you want to stay… right… here,” he says, punctuating the last few words with firm rubs of his fingers against her.

            She drops her head gently forward to rest against the door, pushes her hips back against Duke’s as she speaks. “You sure you don’t want in?” she asks, grin widening at the raw noise which stutters out of him at her motion.

            “I’m nothing if not flexible,” he responds, voice gone low and husky. He shifts his grip on her so that she can turn around in his grasp, ducks his head enough to kiss her.

            She melts back against the door, tugs him closer by the lip of his jeans and feels the echo of his smile in their kiss. This is how she best loves Duke; soft and playful and intent on seeking the warmth of love and the comfort of touch like he has finally been convinced he deserves it.

            Sometimes, when they are alone like this, she can feel the ways he has healed since she met him. In the sure slide of his hand over her skin she can feel the absence of that aching, vulnerable part of him that had needed something he wasn’t getting, had never had for more than a moment; just long enough to know what he was missing.

            He’s not missing it anymore- she and Nathan have worked to ensure that is the case. When she drags her fingers down his chest, he presses into it without hesitation. When he slides his fingers under her shirt, along her side to trace up the skin of her back, she can feel that he is sure of his welcome.

            Duke Crocker is learning to love like he will not be hurt and that, more than anything, will always thrill her.

  
            ))


	7. Chapter 7

            Three days later, Duke finds himself standing outside of Audrey’s apartment door at three in the morning, looking absolutely pathetic and dripping blood onto the balcony. She ushers him inside and straight into her small bathroom while he tries not to make a mess of the floor. As soon as he is seated on the edge of her tub, she pulls out clean washcloths and antibacterial soap and turns on the tub faucet.

            “What _happened?_ ” she asks, and he knows she expects some kind of exciting answer, but the truth is disappointing in every regard. “You pick a fight with weed whacker?”

            “Yesterday I gave Oskar flea medication,” he says, aborting his motion to demonstrate when Audrey firmly grasps his wounded forearm. “He didn’t mind, so I thought I could give him some other vaccinations.”

            “What other vaccinations?” He knows what she is doing, distracting him from the gashes seeping red all over his arms as she wipes at them. It hurts, stings like he’s being clawed up fresh all over again, but he doesn’t comment.

            “Just some that the pet store had,” Duke says vaguely, mostly because he isn’t entirely sure. The lady had told him that a few of the vaccinations cats needed didn’t require a vet, stuff that people give to barn cats or strays, and Duke had reasoned that Oskar fell into one of those categories. “I didn’t think he’d try to take my face off.”

            Audrey makes a noise of exasperation. “Have you considered taking him to an actual vet?”

            Duke just stares hard at the rents in his skin, unwilling to tell Audrey how afraid he is to try to take Oskar _anywhere_ , much less to a vet. He is still befriending him, and even though Duke has never had a cat or a dog before in his life, he knows what a betrayal animals find it to be taken to the vet.

            He doesn’t want Oskar to take off and never come back.

            “I don’t need to,” he says, and it sounds defensive even to him. “I did manage to give him all the vaccinations. He should be set.”

            “You should still take him in, especially if you’re planning on keeping him around,” Audrey lectures. She finally stops wiping at the mess and begins peeling gauze out of packages. “Pets need a lot of care.” She pauses, straightens slightly at her own words. “Is he a pet? Are you going to keep him? _Where_ are you going to keep him? You live on a boat!”

            Duke blinks, uncertain where the sudden onslaught of questions came from, but Audrey is staring expectantly and so he scrapes up the best answers he can find. “I mean, I- I guess I didn’t think that far? I just wanted to make sure he didn’t die.”

            Audrey’s brow knits and she tips her head just slightly. “Have you thought about telling Nathan?” she asks, gently, like she doesn’t want to hurt him. Duke gives her a confused look, because he’d thought she would tell Nathan, after finding out. Audrey shakes her head a little. “It’s not my secret,” she says, as if reading his mind. “But he does have a whole real house, and he likes animals.”

            “He likes _dogs_ ,” Duke grumbles, wincing when she presses a little too hard on the deepest of the lacerations. She doesn’t apologize, just begins wrapping the gauze to stay in place.

            Audrey gives him the _you know better_ face. “If it’s cute or fluffy, he likes it,” she reminds him wryly. Duke snorts a laugh at that, because that is probably true, but he still can’t imagine Nathan actually agreeing to keep a cat at all, much less one as wild as Oskar.

            He doesn’t want to tell her he’s scared of what Nathan might say, how Nathan might judge the situation, what he might think about Duke’s ability to care for another living creature. “I’ll think about it,” he says instead.

            Audrey sighs like she knows those words mean _not a chance in Hell_ , but she doesn’t press the issue again. She just finishes wrapping up his wounds, and then raises his wrist to her lips to give it a soft, healing kiss.

            “Well, it was a close call, Mr. Crocker, but it looks like you’re going to survive after all,” she tells him, her eyes bright with her teasing smile. “I’d definitely recommend bed rest for you, though. At least until morning.”

            Duke can’t help his smile as he leans over to kiss her cheek. “Thanks, Doc,” he says with sincerity. “I’ll go find myself a good bed to sleep in.”

            She stands, holding out her hand for him to take. “I know just the one,” she says as he threads their fingers. Duke just smiles.


	8. Chapter 8

            Audrey joins him once or twice a week, and Duke makes sure to turn up at Nathan’s to spend time with them on evenings they both aren’t working. By an unspoken rule, they don’t talk about the cat, don’t even mention Oskar to Nathan at all, but Audrey gives him _looks_ every time he misses an opportunity. Looks that prickle under his skin, leave an itch at the back of his neck that feels an awful lot like guilt, even though he’s done nothing wrong.

            “I think I’m going to tell him,” Duke says, back to the wall of the Gull. Audrey is leaning against his arm, head tucked onto his shoulder, twitching a stick in front of Oskar, who is thoroughly unimpressed with the effort.

            “Nathan?” Audrey asks, even though it’s obvious.

            “Yeah,” Duke says, tipping his head back against the wall.

            She hums a noise of acknowledgment, and presses her cheek a little harder into his shoulder in silent reassurance. “Do you want me to be there?”

            He shifts to put his cheek against the crown of her head, eyes on Oskar’s sleek, grey form. He hadn’t considered having reinforcements when telling Nathan, but the offer sits warm and fuzzy in his chest. “I would like that,” he admits.

            Oskar bolts a second before they hear the rumble of wheels on gravel. Duke straightens, recognizing the sound of the engine even before the Bronco rolls into view, headlights flashing over them on its way to a parking spot. Duke glances at Audrey, who squeezes his arm and dredges up a smile that Duke thinks is supposed to be reassuring.

            He feels like they both just got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and the look on Nathan’s face doesn’t do anything to alleviate the feeling.

            “Are you okay?” is the first thing out of Nathan’s mouth, and that was _not_ what Duke was expecting.

            “Yeah, we’re fine,” Duke responds, confused, already getting to his feet because something must have _happened_ for Nathan to sag with relief the way he does. “What’s wrong?”

            “You weren’t answering your phones,” Nathan growls, though Duke can tell its out of irritation rather than anger. Duke checks his pocket, and realizes he actually doesn’t have his phone. “What are you doing out here?”

            Before Duke can answer, Audrey pinches his arm and hisses his name, pointing to the corner of the building. Both Duke and Nathan turn to see, only to find Oskar’s face peeking around at them. His eyes are lit up silver in the light of the Bronco’s headlights.

            “That,” Duke says softly, waving one hand to present the cat to Nathan, who is already clambering down onto his knees before Duke can register what is actually happening. “What are- what are you doing?”

            “Shh,” Audrey says, holding Duke’s arm to pull him back a step as Oskar comes around the corner of the building.

            Duke watches, mouth open, as Oskar trots across the distance to Nathan, tail held in a high question mark, and begins to rub his face on Nathan’s outstretched hands. Audrey makes a tight, quiet noise of glee, eyes locked on Nathan and the cat.

            “Hi there, sweet baby,” Nathan coos, rubbing his fingers all over Oskar’s face, along his cheeks and over his ears and down his back in long, firm strokes. Oskar soaks up every second of it, dropping onto his side and then _rolling onto his back_ for tummy rubs in a way Duke had _never_ seen him do. “You are _precious_. When did you get a cat?”

            Duke blinks, realizing Nathan has switched back to talking to him only because the pitch of his voice has shifted back to normal. “Uh-” he says intelligibly.

            “Oskar isn’t exactly a pet,” Audrey offers helpfully, now that the proverbial and literal cat is out of the bag.

            “Oh,” Nathan says, sounding more disappointed than he had any right to be considering he had met the cat fifteen seconds ago. “But she will be, right?”

            “He will be,” Duke corrects.

            “She,” Nathan corrects back, looking over his shoulder. “Don’t even know she’s a girl?”

            Duke doesn’t know what to say to that, because he honestly hadn’t checked, hadn’t been _able_ to check, because Oskar wouldn’t actually let Duke hold him. Her. Duke sighs.

            “Fine, _she_ will be,” Duke says, trying not to roll his eyes at Nathan’s grin. “She likes you.”

            Nathan makes a disgustingly cute noise as he bends closer to Oskar, rubbing her belly and following the line of her legs to touch her paws. She grabs onto his hand with both front paws, but he doesn’t pull away and she keeps her claws sheathed as she begins to lick his fingers. “Well, I like her, too.”

            Duke can’t decide what’s worse; the fact that he’s spent the better part of two months romancing a cat that likes Nathan best or the fact that Audrey is practically shaking with silent laughter beside him because _she knows_. He elbows at her and her self-control breaks with a loud burst of laughter that she tries to hide behind her hands.

            Oskar startles up at the sound, as does Nathan, and the pair of them looking at Duke and Audrey like owls is just too much for Duke. He chooses amusement over irritation, joining Audrey with a much quieter and more resigned huff of laughter.

            “What?” Nathan asks, confused. When Oskar butts at his hand, he begins to pet her again, but keeps his eyes on Duke and Audrey.

            “She won’t let us pet her like that,” Audrey explains. “He’s been trying for months, and you just- you just-”

            Duke sees the moment it dawns on Nathan, what Audrey is trying to say, and he has the good grace to duck his head a little. “Oh,” he says, turning back to look at Oskar where she is rolling around under his hand, purring loud enough Duke can hear her. “You haven’t…?”

            “No,” Duke says, shaking his head. “I can pet her sometimes, but I gave her a flea treatment and some shots once and she hasn’t really forgiven me since.” He shifts his attention and tone to address Oskar instead. “Even if it was to _help you_ , you dirty traitor.”

            She meows back at him, and Duke sighs again.

            “So you haven’t taken her to the vet?” Nathan asks. Duke can hear the note of judgment creep in no matter how Nathan tries to keep it out. “She hasn’t been fixed?”

            “Can’t pick her up,” Duke says, doing his best to keep from getting defensive. He’d been doing the best he could with what he had.

            “It was a part of the ten step plan,” Audrey adds, sliding in to rescue Duke. “Feed her, pet her, medicate her, get her in to a vet… we were working on it.”

            Nathan leans forward and scoops the puddle of cat up into his arms as he stands. Oskar makes a noise of protest, but she doesn’t squirm to get away; rather, she rotates her body so that she can put her paws on Nathan’s shoulder and rub her head over the edge of his jaw. “Bet I can take her in, if you want.”

            Duke swallows his jealousy, and nods when Nathan looks at him. “I have a- a carrier in the office,” he admits. He _had_ made _some_ preparations, after all, even if he isn’t at a point where they are useful yet.

            “I’ll get it,” Audrey tells him, giving his wrist a squeeze before slipping around his back and heading into the _Gull_.

            “There’s nowhere open at this hour,” Duke tells Nathan.

            “Bayview opens at seven,” Nathan says, seemingly unconcerned. “She won’t like it, but she’ll survive. Won’t you, Oskar, you’ll survive a little incarceration and a vet visit, and then we’ll give you lots of treats and snuggles.”

            Despite all of the Troubles, all of the _weird shit_ he had seen abroad and in town, hearing the word _snuggles_ come out of Nathan Wuornos’ mouth on the heels of the word _incarceration_ certainly has to be the most surreal moment of Duke’s entire life.

            He supposes that he should get used to it; he is apparently keeping both of them.


	9. Chapter 9

            Duke has read the care sheet the veterinarian office gave him at least a thousand times while waiting for Oskar to get out of surgery. Nathan had kept his word and brought her into the office with Duke as soon as Bayview opened for the morning. Even though they frowned at his very sudden arrival for such a procedure, Duke had paid them more than enough to get it done immediately.

            After, Nathan had ushered him away from the office so he wouldn’t wear a path in their waiting room. The nice lady behind the counter told him to come back at three, which is still five minutes away, but Duke figures he has waited long enough and there is probably paperwork anyway.

            When he lets himself in the front door, the same lady - Rachel, her nametag reads - gives him a slightly confused smile and says: “Is everything okay?”

            This draws Duke up short, because he should be the one asking that question. “Yeah, I- I’m here to pick up Oskar.”

            “Oh,” Rachel says, looking even more confused. “But- she’s not here anymore.”

            The pit of Duke’s stomach drops out at the words and he cannot seem to draw in adequate breath. _Not here_. _Not here_. _Gone_. The Troubles are no so far behind him that Duke has forgotten what loss feels like. “What?”

            “She’s not here anymore,” Rachel repeats, as if Duke hadn’t heard her painfully clear the first time. “Your boyfriend picked her up half an hour ago.”

            Dizziness drags at Duke’s balance as relief courses through him. _Not gone_. Nathan has her, must have picked her up early. “Oh,” he manages, the word dry and brittle on his tongue. “He must have forgotten to call.”

            “Must have,” Rachel agrees, although she looks like she might just come around the counter to help him if he doesn’t do something to show he’s not going to panic.

            “Well that’s- I’m- are we all set then?” he fumbles, trying to figure out what exactly happens now. He’s already paid them, and well.

            Rachel leans over to one side of the counter and pulls a couple pieces of paper from a folder in a stand. She passes them over the counter and Duke picks them up with shaking fingers. The first is some kind of documentation of charges, and the second is a receipt. “Now you are. She was good, Mr. Crocker. I hope we never have to see her again.”

            “Yeah,” he says, forcing a smile at the sentiment. He’d prefer never to come back here, either. “Thanks. Thank you.”

            His phone is already dialing before he hits the outdoors, and Nathan picks up after only half a ring. “You’re an asshole,” Duke says as soon as he hears Nathan is present on the other end.

            Nathan’s laughter helps to loosen the knot of worry in his belly. “I just got her home,” he tells Duke. “Was picking up my phone to call you when it rang.”

            Duke freezes in the middle of the parking lot, heart beating in his ears. “Like, _your house_ , home?” There is no way that is what Nathan means, there is no way Nathan took her back to his house. That would mean-

            “Yeah,” Nathan says, easy and soft. “Where were you going to take her? Can’t go on the _Rouge_. Can’t go back outside.”

            Duke knows that, he’s read the care sheet. At least a thousand times. She needs to keep her incision site clean and dry for a couple of days. She needs to be watched at least overnight. She needs a place to recover that is not the parking lot of a seaside restaurant or an admittedly still-in-need-of-repairs smuggling vessel.

            She would need exactly what Nathan had given to her, without Duke ever having to ask. Nathan has given it to both of them without thinking twice about it.

            Duke takes a slow breath and lets it out slower.

            “I’m coming over,” he says, careful and steady.

            “We’ll be here,” Nathan says. “And Duke? She’s fine.”

            Even though he hadn’t asked, he is grateful for the reassurance. He mumbles a goodbye and closes the phone as he climbs into his truck. The drive to Nathan’s house is both shorter than he expects and longer than it should be and by the time he reaches the door, he is a bundle of nerves again. The front door is unlocked, so he lets himself in.

            He isn’t sure what he expected to find, but it wasn’t this.

            Nathan is stretched out on the couch, his head against one arm and his feet overhanging the arm on the opposite side. Sitting on his belly is a grey tabby with a shaved belly, her eyes closed in a dozy way that tells Duke she hasn’t even registered his arrival. Her paws are flexing and kneading at the soft sweater Nathan is wearing- one of Duke’s he’d left here the last time he’d spent the night.

            Instead of saying anything, Duke paces across the room and drops gracefully to his knees beside the couch. Nathan’s hand reaches out automatically, palm sliding down over Duke’s thigh to his knee, fingertips resting lightly there, just seeking contact the way he does more and more often these days.

            Oskar notices him, then, and gives a strange, breathy meow that stutters over her purr. Tentatively, Duke reaches up and holds out one hand just close enough to leave the decision up to her whether or not she wants to be pet. She tips her head and leans, very nearly tumbling off of Nathan, in order to press into Duke’s fingers.

            “She’s still on some pretty intense painkillers,” Nathan murmurs, using his free hand to help Duke pet her. She cannot seem to decide which way to lean as they both gently scrub fingers into her pelt. “Not sure she knows where she is.”

            Duke leans against the side of the couch, puts his head on Nathan’s hip so that he is looking at him sideways, and he smiles. “She’s home,” he says softly.

            Nathan’s warm smile tells him it is the truth.


	10. Chapter 10

            For someone who has seen a lot, done a lot, survived and experienced a  _ huge  _ range of events, Duke finds himself constantly surprised by what happens because of a scrap of fur with a cute face, a high meow, and a soft purr.

            When he comes in the front door the first day after Oskar’s surgery, it is to find Oskar lying curled up on one of his sweaters, sound asleep. Both Nathan and Audrey are still at work, so Duke kicks off his boots and pads across the room to kneel down next to the couch, at Oskar’s side. She doesn’t move until he gently touches her, and only then it is to make a high, delightful noise that makes her sound like she has activated.

            Under his fingers, she begins to purr, and something warm and soft settles into his chest. She has gone from a wretched, dying scrap of a thing to a creature made of contentedness. She is safe and well and loved.

            He had done that.

            He had done something  _ good _ .

            And there is nothing left to take that away from him.

            She is safe.  _ He _ is safe.

            She lifts her head when he begins to cry, blinks a sleepy, curious look at him before she shifts and repositions herself to lay with her head close to his. He cannot help the broken smile that touches his lips when she makes a noise of inquiry before butting her head against his.

            He curls his fingers into her soft fur, and she doesn’t try to get away, doesn’t squirm or protest. Instead, she licks his fingers, licks his forehead, and lets him sit with her as long as he needs.

            Duke begins to realize that maybe she wasn’t the only one who needed a little saving.


	11. Chapter 11

            While Oskar is recovering from surgery, Duke practically sets up camp in Nathan’s house. It’s not like he hasn’t come over before, or even that he hasn’t spent the night on many occasions, but this is  _ different _ . This is the  _ my toothbrush is in your bathroom _ and  _ I washed our clothes together _ and  _ you cooked breakfast the last three days it’s my turn _ kind of space-sharing. It is  _ who gets the remote _ and  _ what should we make for dinner _ and  _ when are you going to be home? _ territory.

            It is the kind of arrangement that Duke thinks should be terrifying, the kind that should make his bones ache to be behind the wheel of the  _ Rouge _ riding off into the great blue beyond where there are no attachments or obligations or expectations.

            Instead, it is warm.

            It is the curl of affection he feels when he comes over late at night to find Audrey curled up on the loveseat with her thumb in a book and a glass of wine on the coffee table in front of her. She is wrapped up in one of his sweaters, buried underneath one of Nathan’s quilts. Curled up in a tight little ball on her feet is Oskar, who does nothing to acknowledge his existence even when he runs a hand over her back in greeting.

            It is the sense of belonging he feels when he wakes up nestled along Nathan’s back, his nose to the nape of Nathan’s neck and one of Nathan’s legs wormed between his own. It is Audrey’s fingers twined between his own from where she sleeps tucked under Nathan’s chin, and the tickly sensation of Oskar sleeping on the pillow next to his head.

            It is the surge of happiness that floods his system when he manages to wake up earlier than the early birds, and get breakfast under way. It is the smile on his face as Oskar winds around his feet as he is trying to cook, until he relents and gives her a little bowl of soft food. She lifts her back into every stroke of his hand down her sleek back, and he cannot help but think how  _ healthy _ she looks now that she has all the food and water and love and safety she could possibly need.

            It is the dawning realization, as he sits down to the breakfast he cooked for them, as he laughs over Nathan drawing pictures out of syrup and Audrey trying to guess what they are, as he soaks in the compliments to the chef, that he isn’t scared of any of it. He isn’t trapped or stifled or out of place, here with them. He is  _ comfortable _ .

            It is the warm, welcome revelation that, like Oskar, he is  _ home _ .


	12. Chapter 12

           What starts as a temporary relocation of Oskar’s food bowls from outside the _Gull_ to inside Nathan’s kitchen post-surgery becomes a sneaking transformation of Nathan’s _entire house_.

           Duke notices the little toy mouse first. Sitting in the middle of the floor, it is almost innocuous, a little teardrop wound in twine with feathers for a tail and tiny felt ears. Duke only looks twice because it is a vibrant shade of magenta and chartreuse against Nathan’s clean pale carpet.

           He knows  _ he _ didn’t buy the thing, which means one of the other two  _ did _ . He spends almost a full minute standing at the edge of the room staring at it, trying to picture either of them in a pet store, purchasing a gaudy toy mouse for a stray cat. He decides it had to have been Nathan just as Oskar whips around a corner, bats the toy under the couch with an undulating yowl, and takes off again with her tail held in a strange n shape.

           Duke decides not to ask questions.

           His suspicions about toy purchases are confirmed when he wakes up late and alone the next morning and pads into the kitchen to find Nathan sitting on the floor with his back against the cupboards and a new cat toy in his free hand. It consists of a long black pole and a thin black string and a bundle of rainbow feathers that send Oskar sprinting after them every time Nathan twitches his wrist.

           Duke isn’t sure which brings him more happiness; the wiggle of Oskar’s butt before she pounces or the delighted laugh Nathan gives every time she does it. He decides it doesn’t matter, and promises himself that, later, he will buy other toys for his two adorable housemates to bond over before breakfasts. Then he sets about getting out real food to make instead of the granola bar Nathan has decided is an acceptable meal.

           Two nights later, he is woken by the cold at his back, evidence of the absence of Audrey, and he disentangles himself from Nathan in order to slip out of bed when she hasn’t returned after a few minutes. He follows the sound of scrabbling claws on carpet, and finds Audrey curled against the arm of the couch, her head pillowed on one arm. Her other hand holds a small piece of metal which she is twitching around in a pattern.

           On the floor, Oskar chases a tiny red dot, and Duke cannot help but smile. Audrey and Oskar both look up when he clears his throat to announce his presence and keep from startling them. Audrey smiles and shifts to lean against him after he takes a seat beside her.

           “Couldn’t sleep?” he murmurs, kissing the top of her head.

           She clicks on the laser pointer again, and Oskar goes back to the hunt. For long moments, Audrey doesn’t say a word, just flicks the little dot around the ground and watches Oskar chase it. Duke feels the moment she decides to talk, feels the way her posture goes limp and she really sags against his side.

           “I thought my phone-” She swallows whatever words come next, shakes her head. “It’s fine,” she says instead, and Duke knows it’s not a  _ dismissal _ of her anxiety, it is a  _ reassurance. _

           “No more middle of the night calls for Troubles,” Duke reminds her. The station hasn’t called her or Nathan in on their down time in months. There hasn’t been a need.

           Though she doesn’t answer, her hand drops and her finger slides off the laser pointer’s button. She is trembling, enough that Duke can feel it, and he shifts to wrap one arm around her, pull her close. The soft sound of her sob draws Oskar’s attention away from looking for the red dot, and she pads over to bat at Audrey’s hand.

           Audrey wriggles sluggishly forward, leaning until she can get her hands under Oskar and drag her bodily onto the couch to join them. She curls in on herself, Oskar in a ball in her lap, and practically stuffs her face into Oskar’s neck.

           Oskar tolerates this for a minute or two, lying still and letting Audrey cry into her fur, and then she begins to squirm until Audrey lets her go. She melts down onto the floor and Duke tracks her across the room to where Nathan is standing in the doorway. The little jerk Duke’s body gives alerts Audrey, and then they are both staring owlishly at him.

           “We having a meeting?” Nathan mumbles, voice sleep-sticky and rough. His hair stands up at every odd angle and Duke can’t help but smile at the little choked laugh Audrey gives. “Can we relocate to our warm bed?”

           Audrey unfolds herself and clambers off the couch, turning to offer Duke a hand up. He takes it even though it is unnecessary, and the three of them return to the bedroom. Oskar follows at their heel, and Duke is not surprised when she forgoes sleeping against his face in favor of curling up on Audrey’s chest.

           Of course, the mouse toy and the laser pointer are not the end of it. If Duke had ever intended to remove Oskar from Nathan’s house, he surrenders the idea the day he comes home to find Nathan and Audrey having a slow argument about where to put the monstrosity of a cat tower they apparently purchased and somehow fit through the front door.

           They both blush when Duke begins to laugh almost as soon as he realizes what is going on, and Nathan lets out a small, breathy chuckle that ends the discussion. Duke helps him move the carpeted behemoth to a space in front of the window, and Oskar deems it a worthy location after a thorough investigation a short while later.

           That night Duke curls up on the couch, his feet tucked under Audrey’s butt where she sits on the opposite end dozily watching the evening news. On the floor, Nathan twitches the feather-string toy in front of the thoroughly unimpressed cat. Duke’s gaze wanders from them to the half dozen little cat toys around them, to the laser pointer on the coffee table between three empty mugs, to the towering cat playscape, and he smiles.

           It’s already been three weeks since Oskar’s surgery, more than enough time for her to have recovered, and Duke begins to think she must be here to stay.

           When Nathan gives up on his one-sided game and they all wobble to their feet to head to bed together without hesitation, Duke thinks that maybe they are  _ all _ here to stay.


	13. Chapter 13

            Sometimes, Duke gets an itch under his skin, the sort that can only be scratched by a good, deep cleansing of his spaces. Even though he has practically been living at Nathan’s house for the past month, it’s not _his_ space, or at least it is not his space the same way it is Nathan’s space, so after Nathan has left for work, Duke leaves Audrey sleeping with Oskar curled up on her back, and takes off for the _Rouge._

            There, he _cleans_.

He scrubs the deck, runs over it with a small power washer. He checks all her ropes and chains, organizes the piles of traps and buoys and boxes so that they are in shapes instead of piles. Below deck he removes items from shelves and dusts beneath them, wipes clean every surface he can reach.

            He pulls the bedding he hasn’t slept on in a month and hauls it to the laundromat and it is as he is sitting on the washing machine he is not supposed to be sitting on that he realizes it’s _not the same_ anymore.

            All of the things he has cleaned, from the deck to the bed, are still his things, but he does not belong to them the way he used to. They are new and old at the same time, things which belong to a familiar stranger, to the man he used to be. They belong to Duke Crocker, the pirate, the smuggler, the reluctant hero, the broken, desperate man who gave up everything to save a town, died to protect the people he loves.

            He pulls the bedding out of the washing machine and into one of the carts and then stares at it, stares through it, trying to breathe, to hold onto his world as it slides sideways for a minute.

            They had _survived_. It is _over_ and they had _survived_ it, had survived all of the Troubles, all of the mayhem and destruction and death that had become commonplace in their lives, and it is just _over_. No more 2am call to arms. No more wondering who will turn up dead next. No more danger, no more running, no more fear.

            Everything is _different_.

            He packs the bedding into one of the dryers, piles coins into the machine, and presses all the right buttons before allowing himself to sink to the floor with his back to the machine. He focuses on counting, on breathing, lets the shake and tumble of the process smooth out his thoughts until they are blank and easy.

            When the buzzer pulls him out of it, Duke climbs to his feet and pulls the warm covers from the dryer, holds as much of it in his arms as he can for a moment, just letting the warmth seep into his bones. It is pleasant, a reminder that things _are_ warm these days. There is warmth and love and light in his life, and they are no longer rare commodities. He no longer has to hunt for them, doesn’t need to barter or trade or buy them with pieces of himself because they are just _there_.

            They are there, freely given, without questions or expectations, without needing anything from him in return.

            He takes the bedding back to the Rouge, lays it on the bed without properly putting it back on, and goes _home_.

            As soon as he lets himself in the front door, Oskar winds around his feet in greeting, small huffy meows peppering the space between them until he’s gotten his shoes off. Then her tail flags up and she trots across the house, leading him to the stairs. He follows, if only because he was heading that direction anyway, and she takes him all the way up to the bedroom.

            Audrey is still sleeping, her face buried in the pillows and one leg kicked out of the covers. Oskar, oblivious to the time schedules of humans, hops onto the bed and walks up Audrey’s body, rousing her. She makes sleepy greeting noises at the cat until she turns her head and spots Duke leaning in the doorway, and then she smiles, eyes closing.

            “You’re up early,” she comments, voice sticky with sleep.

            He raises an eyebrow. Even though he had no regrets about it, they’d both been up past their bedtimes. “It’s almost eleven,” he tells her. She’s working second shift today, the last time for a few weeks, and she’ll have to be up soon anyway.

            She puts her face back into the pillow.

            “Hey, Audrey?” Duke ventures, voice thready. She peeks out at him with one eye, and he clears his throat, crosses his arms even though he knows how defensive it will seem. “Do you- do you think Nathan would mind if I… cleaned. Stuff. Just… cleaned here.”

            She gives him an odd look, one that says she can’t figure out why he’s asking, and that is some small measure of comfort. “No,” she says, and her eyes squint a little. He knows what she is doing, knows she is assessing the question, everything from the words to his tone to his stance, and knows that she is going to draw all the right conclusions.

            “I mean, like, _really_ cleaned, not just… pick up after myself,” he clarifies before she can process the rest on her own.

            Audrey tips Oskar off her back and sits up with her bare legs over the side of the bed, beckoning Duke over with outstretched hands. He goes willingly, takes to his knees at the edge of the bed and places his hands on her legs. She doesn’t speak at first, just cards her fingers through his hair, soothing, until he can feel the tension begin to leech out of his muscles.

            “Duke,” she says,finally, and he opens his eyes, meeting her gaze. “I hope you know that you’re not just _staying here_.”

            He swallows, belly swooping unpleasantly, and she tightens her grip in his hair before he can sink too far into that thought. “Audrey-”

            “You know why I kept the apartment at the Gull?” she asks, though she doesn’t wait for his answer. “Because I wanted to be near you, too. Near Nathan, and near you, and that meant swinging between two places. And then… you started feeding this silly cat and I just thought, _he can’t keep her on a boat_. When Nathan took her to the vet, I told him to get her early and bring her here. I figured maybe… if she was here, you might come here, too.”

            He shifts and she retracts her hands, worry flashing across her features as his brow furrows at her for just a second. “Audrey Parker,” he says, an accusation without heat. “Did you trick Nathan into stealing my cat just so I would come live with you two?”

            The color that blushes across her cheeks races down her neckline in the prettiest way, and Duke cannot help his smile. She puts her hands over his, fingers brushing the backs of his wrists. “Did it work?” She is completely unrepentant and Duke has never been more in love.

            “How are we going to tell Nathan?” he asks, full of pretend concern.

            “He was a detective,” she reminds him with a little face. “I think he knows.”

            “The cat probably gave it away,” Duke laments in agreement, looking past Audrey to where Oskar is cleaning her paws in the middle of the rumpled bedcovers. “We shouldn’t have brought her.”

            Audrey flicks a finger at his head and he laughs as he rocks back and gets to his feet. She flops back onto the bed, dislodging Oskar, and then wraps herself back up in the covers. “Go clean your house, Duke,” she orders. “I promise not to tell Nathan on you.”

            Duke rolls his eyes and backs out of the room, letting Oskar dart past his heels before he closes the door. For a long moment he just stands in the hallway, letting his breath in and out, wrapping his thoughts around the warm, solid feeling of knowing where he stands in the world.

 

((

 

            As it turns out, Oskar is the one who hates when Duke cleans.

            He expects, the first time he takes out the vacuum, that there will be some form of negative reaction, but aside from looking up, Oskar doesn’t even acknowledge the existence of the machine. Duke even vacuums the tip of her tail with the hose and she only twitches it away from him and gives him narrow-eyed stare. Audrey finds him a brush attachment, and watches over his shoulder with wide eyes as he vacuums the completely uncaring cat.

            “And here I thought they were self-cleaning,” she says, and Duke does his level best not to roll his eyes.

            While the universally-hated piece of cleaning equipment seems to cause no reaction, the broom is another story. The broom must die. The broom must _suffer_ and die, according to the way Oskar throws herself across the room and performs a very acrobatic attack at its bristles. The first time it happens, it startles Duke so much he drops the broom and nearly falls on his ass.

            Of course, recovering the broom and attempting to scoot her out of the kitchen with it only seems to enrage her. She hooks claws from all four paws into the bristles and proceeds to make killing bites while Duke stands by holding the handle, bewildered.

            Eventually, he gives up, and pushes her around the floor while she growls and kicks like she can gut the instrument by sheer force of will.

            Which is how Nathan finds them three minutes later- Duke pushing the enraged cat around the floor with a broom and an incredibly silly grin on his face.

            “What are you doing?” Nathan asks, evenly, like he’s not really sure he _wants_ to know the answer.

            Duke startles and looks up at Nathan, and then back down to Oskar, then back to Nathan. And back to the cat. “I’m… cleaning,” he says, because there really isn’t a good explanation.

            “With the cat.” Nathan gives him a skeptical look, brows raised.

            “She is… being very helpful,” Duke says.

            Nathan crosses the distance between them and then bends down to pry Oskar away from her mortal enemy. She hisses at him, and then seems to realize who is holding her, and goes into a flat sulk, trying to look over his arm at where the broom is. Nathan cuddles her to his chest as he stands and gives Duke another look.

            “You know, you don’t have to sweep her. Cats are self-cleaning,” he says.

            This time, Duke _does_ roll his eyes.

 

))

 


	14. Chapter 14

            Duke stands in the middle of the ruined kitchen, arms held out wide, fingers spread, and red _everywhere_. It is on his clothes, on his skin, in his _hair_. There is a splash on the floor in a teardrop shape that trails off into a smattering of pawprints, splashes of red rubbed over the cupboards from the chase.

            Beside him, Audrey crouches unsteadily over two toppled dining-room chairs, eyes wide and fixed on Nathan, who stands in the doorway staring at them. He holds a yowling Oskar aloft by the scruff as she struggles, and Duke can see he is trying to breathe around the sight of so much _red_.

            “It’s sauce,” Duke bites out over the sound of Oskar’s screaming. “It’s not blood, Nathan. She got- she knocked over my sauce pan.”

            Audrey extracts herself from the chairs and moves across the room like she is approaching a wild animal. Nathan shifts when she is close enough, lets her past him through the doorway and a moment later, the sound of the shower filters in. Duke finally manages to pull himself together enough to move, shakes a little excess sauce from his hands, the reward for making a grab at a pasta-sauce-covered, cat-shaped missile.

            “Nathan,” Duke says, and Nathan’s eyes meet his as he shakes off the initial shock. “Are you okay?”

            Nathan brings up his other arm, scoops under Oskar so that she has more support for her body, and she shuts up as soon as the pressure on her scruff eases. “I thought-” He stops, swallows whatever fear he’d been about to voice.

            “Yeah,” Duke says with a nod, adrenaline trembling at his limbs, beating fast in his fingertips still. “But we’re okay. It’s just sauce, just an accident.” Not blood. Not an attack, not a Trouble. Just a cat discovering the stove is not a place for cats.

            Audrey appears again, stripped out of her sauce-covered clothes, and touches Nathan’s shoulder. He startles and turns to look at her, and she motions toward the bathroom with a jerk of her head. “She needs a bath.” She looks over both of them, Duke covered in sauce from trying to catch the pot and Nathan cuddling the soaked cat to his chest and lets out a breath. “We all need baths. Come on.”

            Nathan follows stiffly behind her as she leads him toward the bathroom and Duke hesitates only long enough to peel off his messy socks before joining them. “Cats don’t like water,” he points out before Nathan can actually get Oskar into the few inches of water that have collected.

            Despite the warning, Nathan doesn’t hesitate, just sets Oskar into the water feet first. Oskar stiffens, and Duke holds his breath, but she doesn’t struggle or leap for the exit. In fact, she seems merely to resign herself to her fate, allowing Nathan to scoop increasingly muddied waters over her fur until there is more sauce beneath her than upon her. Audrey pulls the plug on the drain, and passes Nathan a cup to scoop clean water from the faucet.

            The _entire_ time, Oskar fixes Duke with a pathetic, pleading look which says in no uncertain terms _how could you let this happen._

            “This isn’t my fault,” Duke says to her as he wipes a hand down his arm over the tub, removing globs of sauce as he goes. Nathan shifts to look up at him, and Duke continues. “If you hadn’t jumped up on the stovetop, where you are not supposed to be, none of this would have happened.”

            “Are you lecturing the cat?” Nathan asks slowly, hesitating in his cleaning process. Oskar continues to glare up at Duke in silent accusation.

            “She’s looking at me!” Duke explains, motioning to her. Nathan looks back down, brow furrowing. “This is good for you, Oskar.” She meows at her name, but it is a deeply unhappy sound that echoes around the bathroom. “You can’t just go walking around covered in pasta sauce.”

            “She gave it a good shot,” Audrey says, and Duke sends her a grateful look for joining in on lightening the mood. “I’m surprised Nathan was able to grab onto her after she slipped through your hands twice.”

            Nathan resumes dumping lukewarm water over Oskar’s body and wiping increasingly clean water from her fur. Duke can see there will be stains, and wonders if they should be using soap. He wonders if soap would be _safe_ , since Oskar regularly licks herself in bendable ways that sometimes make Duke a little envious. He decides he will ask about cat soap the next time he is at the pet store.

            Oskar yowls again, and tries to step over Nathan’s hand to get out of the tub. He holds on, and gently pours a cup of water over her head, disrupting her escape attempt. “It’s okay,” he tells her soothingly. “Just a little more.”

            Instead of looking up at Nathan, Oskar turns a completely put-out look upon Duke once more and, judging by the way her ears lay flat against her head, he is definitely sleeping sans-Oskar tonight.

            “You’re _fine_ ,” he reasons against her, though it appears to have no effect. “I will buy you catnip mice for being so good.” Bribery has worked well for Duke in the past.

            “You’re not giving our cat drugs, Duke,” Nathan tells him as he dumps a final cup over Oskar’s shoulders and scrubs. The water runs clean, even if her grey fur is still stained a little orange.

            “It’s _catnip_ , not _drugs_ ,” Duke argues, even though a warm, pleasant feeling settles in his chest to hear Nathan call her _our_ cat for the first time. “Okay, it’s _barely_ drugs.”

            Audrey laughs as she nudges Duke out of the way and comes to Oskar’s rescue with a fluffy towel. Oskar clings to her, tries to climb over her shoulder to bolt away, but Audrey holds on and bundles her up like a newborn baby. “Not-It on laundry,” she tells them as she disappears out the door to finish drying Oskar off.

            Both boys watch her leave, relaxed enough now to appreciate the view.

            Duke turns away from the doorway first, leans past Nathan to stick his hands under the running bath faucet to clean them now that there is space. The second the warm water hits his fingertips, he hisses and pulls them back to his chest, pain flaming under his skin. Nathan startles and reaches to steady him automatically.

            “I’m fine,” Duke says, holding up his fingertips. In the flailing that had immediately followed Oskar’s surprise appearance in his cooking space, Duke had forgotten he had made a grab for the very hot sauce pot. Luckily for all of them, it was just the pot and not the sauce that had been scalding. “Tried to catch the pot.”

            Nathan reaches up, takes Duke’s hands in his, and inspects his fingertips for a second before his grip softens. “You missed.”

            _That_ gets a startled, pleased laugh from Duke as he steps into Nathan’s space, stands between his knees. “I did miss, that’s true,” Duke admits. “But it was part of the plan.”

            “To douse the cat in pasta sauce?” Nathan asks, playing along with the game. As his hands find Duke’s hips, he glances past Duke to where Audrey has returned without Oskar. “You’ve had better plans.”

            “She was my accomplice,” Duke says dismissively, settling his hands to either side of Nathan’s neck, thumbs stroking skin. “This was really just a ploy to get you naked. Both of you,” he adds, when Audrey’s hands sneak under his shirts from behind.

            “Is it working?” Nathan asks, looking up at Duke’s now, fingers following the edge of Duke’s pants until they hit the button.

            “It’s still in progress,” Duke says, shrugging out of his shirts when Audrey skates her hands up his back with them in tow. He lets his eyes slide closed as she splays her hands over his skin with a pleased sound.

            “Wouldn’t want to stand in the way of progress,” Nathan mumbles, fingers working at Duke’s fly, hands sliding down over his hips when he succeeds.

            Duke steps out of the remnants of his clothes as Nathan stands, moves to the side to switch the water up to the showerhead, turn up the heat a little. Then he watches with a good deal of satisfaction as Audrey very helpfully relieves Nathan of his clothing before she pulls him down into a kiss.

            They do not at all keep their hands to themselves as they rinse off the oily residue left by the pasta sauce, Audrey gleefully running sudsy hands all over both of them _just to be sure, gotta be clean_. Duke laughs when Nathan helps clean her in return, clever fingers finding ticklish spots until she is squealing and practically hanging off the arm he’s gotten around her middle.

            Nathan kisses her in apology, and they finish cleaning up before the water runs cold. After they have dried and dressed, Audrey helps Duke clean the kitchen while Nathan orders pizza instead of fussing with restarting dinner.

            In many ways, the quiet calm of it is a relief. Beyond the extra sensitivity on the pads of his fingers, there are no injuries to patch. There are no lost lives, no destroyed property, no cover stories to invent and keep straight. There are no _what ifs_ to keep them up that night.

            In fact, the worst consequence of their evening is the dirty looks being shot their way by the damp, offended cat.

            And that, Duke thinks as they all swap pizza toppings for the ones they like best, is the kind of trouble he can live with.

  
  
  
  


((

 

            The following morning, Nathan finds himself with unexpected company in his shower. He has just finished rinsing his hair clean and turns to discover Oskar sitting in the bottom of the tub looking up at him through squinted eyes. The curtain nearly comes out of its socket when he grabs hold of it with a startled yelp that does not seem to faze the cat at all.

            She meows, clearly distressed at their shared situation, and he gathers enough wits to pick her up and place her outside of the shower where it is safe and _dry_.

            He hasn’t even straightened all the way before she begins crawling over the edge of the tub at back to the periphery of the spray. He stands there blocking the water as best as he can, baffled.

            “You don’t even _like_ water,” he tells her reasonably.

            She hunkers down like she is preparing to weather a storm, ears laid back. The sideways-up look she gives him says _I will stay here with you but why this?_

            Since he was almost done when she joined him, he gives himself one more quick rinse and then shuts off the water. She straightens when he opens the curtain, watches him grab his towel and dry off before she hops the edge of the tub. As he wraps the towel around his waist, she takes off, trotting out just as Duke rounds the corner.

            “Didn’t get enough bathing the cat last night?” Duke asks, brow raised.

            “Don’t know why she just-” Nathan started, unsure of how to explain that he had just randomly showered with their cat, or that it was _her_ decision, not his. “She _hated_ it last night.”

            Duke shoots a glance behind him, down the hall, probably to wherever Oskar currently is, and his lips purse, brow furrowing in thought. “But she likes _you_ , Nathan,” he says, slowly, deliberately. “Maybe she didn’t want you to be alone for something bad.”

            Nathan’s heart gives a little twist at the words, at the thought that she would want to keep him company even if it is no fun for her. His eyes raise to Duke, thoughts flicking over everything they have been through over the years, all of the times that Duke accompanied them, came back to him, even when it _cost_ him _so much_ to do so.

            “Thank you,” he manages, a whisper over the raw feelings stuck in his throat. Duke turns back to him with a slightly confused smile. “For-” Nathan fumbles to a stop, knows there are more words, things he has to make sure Duke _knows_ , but words just don’t seem adequate. “For coming back. For making sure _I_ came back.”

            He sees the stillness in Duke, the tension pulling his frame taut, and he steps across the short distance between them, tugs Duke into a hug, pouring everything words cannot say into the motion.

            Even though Nathan can feel now, has been able to feel for months, Duke still rocks into the embrace. He tucks his nose into the crook of Nathan’s neck, the tension leeching out of him as he brings his hands up to hug Nathan back.

            “Shouldn’t have had to _come back_ ,” he mumbles into Nathan’s collarbone. “Should never have left.”

            “Gonna stay now,” Nathan says, not sure it’s a question, but needing to hear Duke _say it_.

            He feels the curve of Duke’s smile a second before Duke lifts his head. “Yeah,” Duke says, then kisses Nathan’s cheek, resting his temple against Nathan’s. “Not going anywhere.”

  


))


	15. Chapter 15

            _Organic_ , says the label, which is a moniker that Duke knows means _expensive_ in most buying circles, though it mostly just leaves him wondering how one would make or procure _inorganic_ catnip.

            Oskar does not seem to have the same concerns, when he introduces her to the dry, crumbled plant matter. In fact, her only concern seems to be finding out exactly how loud she can purr, and rubbing her face over every square inch of carpet where Duke has scattered a liberal pinch of the stuff. Whatever ideas Duke might have had about the origins of artificial catnip fade away in light of watching Oskar roll and flip and scoot around in front of him like the silliest of creatures.

            He is so absorbed in watching her that he doesn’t hear the growl of the Bronco or the click of the front door as Nathan arrives home.

            What he _does_ hear is Nathan’s noise of protest, and: “What the hell, Duke?”

            He twists to look over his shoulder and finds Nathan holding the small plastic bag of dried greens, and realizes how it must look. “Catnip,” he says quickly. Oskar makes a strangely oscillating noise and flips over her back to her other side, rubbing her cheek into the carpet. “I gave our cat _drugs_ ,” Duke says facetiously, giving Nathan an open-mouthed look that begs to know what Nathan is going to do about it.

            Nathan just rolls his eyes and tosses the bag at Duke’s head. Duke batts it away, laughing as Nathan takes off his shoes and pads over to join him on the floor. When he reaches  to pet Oskar, she latches onto his hand with all four paws full of claws and hangs on, her teeth set against the pad of his hand. Nathan doesn’t react, doesn’t jerk or try to remove her, though, and after a moment she lets go and begins to roll again.

            “You’ve broken her,” Nathan accuses, checking his hand over for punctures that don’t exist. Oskar has never used her claws on him before and he appears relieved she is not about to start now.

            Duke’s breath goes soft in his chest watching Nathan _look_ for injuries, and he doesn’t hide the moment of panic fast enough to keep from being noticed.

            “I felt it,” Nathan assures him, holding his hand out for Duke to see that it is uninjured. “Just felt sharper than it was.”

            Duke draws in a more solid breath, trying to shake off the feeling, and nods. “She likes you,” he agrees, and forces a smile that turns real as it alights in his eyes. “Even when she’s stoned out of her mind, apparently.”

            “What’s not to like?” Nathan says, sly, his smile hiding just beneath the surface.

            “Beats me,” Duke tells him, rocking up onto his knees to give Nathan’s cheek a kiss. Then he leaves him there to watch Oskar while he makes lunch before he leaves for the _Gull_.

            Three days later, Duke comes home from an early shift to find Nathan making a mess of the kitchen, his hands blackened with potting soil and two small plants freshly installed in clay pots on the counter. Nathan is holding a third pot under the running tap and watching the water drain out the bottom, though he glances up when Duke shuts the front door.

            Duke peeks over Nathan’s shoulder at the plants, deciding they are some kind of mint by the shape of the leaves. “Starting a garden?” he inquires, brushing a finger over the underside of one of the leaves. It comes away with a very distinct scent, and Duke realizes what is going on before Nathan responds.

            “Catnip,” Nathan confirms, setting the pot on a clay saucer to keep it from bleeding dirty water onto the counter. He picks up a second pot and begins to soak it under the tap. “Thought she might like it fresh.”

            Duke doesn’t comment on the soft pink hue that colors Nathan’s ears at the admission. “I bet she _loves_ it,” he says instead.

            As it turns out, Duke is not wrong. He is so not wrong that for the first time, they have to lock Oskar out of a room in order to keep her from chewing all three of the new plants down to the roots. Even though he threatens to, Duke does not hold a funeral for the battered remains of the first casualty of Oskar’s catnip addiction, but he does find tiny fences to put around the remaining two plants.

            Audrey tells him that they are not fences, they are tomato cages, and Duke argues _but there aren’t any tomatoes, Audrey_. He tapes signs to both cages that read ‘Catnip Garden, STAY OUT” and Audrey scribbles in “no cats allowed” underneath.

            “It’s like living with children,” Nathan tells them when he finds the notes, but he doesn’t take them off.

            “You love children,” Audrey points out with a squinty little smile. Nathan’s raised brows say _see?_ and Audrey rolls her eyes because she’s been tricked into doing exactly what he wanted.

            When Duke doesn’t add his own smart remark, they both turn to find him giving them a soft, thoughtful look. “Duke?” Nathan says and the word contains all the questions he could ask.

            Duke looks down and then up again, head still ducked with the guilt of being caught. “Do you think you…” He shakes his head, brushing it off with a bright, forced smile and a huff of self-deprecating laughter. “Nevermind, it’s nothing.”

            Audrey isn’t afraid to call him on it. “That’s not the _nothing_ face. Do we think what?”

            Dropping his eyes and leaning against the door frame of the spare bedroom, Duke gives a little shrug, still trying to brush off the importance of what he wanted to say. “About kids,” he forces out, but he glances up to catch their reactions, sees the flicker of a stricken expression on both their faces. “See? That’s why I didn’t- I wasn’t-”

            He fumbles the words, drops the thought because he’s not sure where he’s going with it. They’ve all lost a child, in some way- children they didn’t know they had, children they barely met, children they couldn’t keep if they wanted to live. Their lives, _all_ of their lives, had been so unstable, so _dangerous_ for so long that children _couldn’t_ factor into them, not safely.

            But they are _here_ now, and the Troubles are ever-fading into the distant past, and there are not one but _two_ people each of them knows they can depend upon completely. They have managed to converge three lives under one roof, and it’s _working_ , and it’s _good_ , and even though Duke might never before have entertained the idea of actually having children, of having _that much_ responsibility to another person, he _knows_ Nathan has. He’s almost certain Audrey has, too.

            It surprises Duke that Nathan is the one to answer first, slow and cautious. “I think about having kids,” he says. “Sometimes.”

            The confession lays between the three of them, heavy and sharp in ways Duke hadn’t expected. He’d known. Of course Nathan thought about it; he’d been thinking about it since they were teenagers making extravagant life plans beneath the softball bleachers. Nathan’s face lights up with wonder any time he is exposed to babies, he turns to mush whenever he has an opportunity to play with kids.

            Audrey was right; Nathan _loves_ kids.

            Yet somehow they ended up here, where everything they had been through in the past three years put a thread of fear through Nathan’s tone to even whisper the idea of children to the two people he trusted most.

            “Nathan, I’m-” he starts.

            “I’ve thought about it,” Audrey breathes out, body strung tight as piano wire. She isn’t looking at either of them, gaze unfocused. Duke can see the short rise and fall of her chest, knows she is struggling past some measure of panic. “But that’s just- that’s so _huge_ , and I still- I don’t even sleep through whole nights, and every time I start to think everything is finally okay I start thinking _what if it’s not_. That’s not- I can’t-”

            “Parker,” Nathan says, soft and insistent, and it is enough to stop her, draw her focus over to him. His brows raise and pull together as he gives her a considering look. “It _is_ okay. Troubles are gone, the town’s safe. _We’re_ safe, all of us.”

            “I know that,” she says breathlessly. “I know that in my head, but it just-”

            “When you’ve been in danger long enough, it’s tough to shake looking over your shoulder,” Duke offers, because he’s been there. He knows that feeling. He’s lived with that feeling since he was a little kid.

            “Yeah,” she says, some of the tension seeping out of her frame as she looks back at Duke. “But, yes, I- I do think about kids with you two. Someday. Way someday,” she adds with an attempt at a smile.

            Duke meets Nathan’s eyes over Audrey’s head and lets the ghost a smile flicker over his lips, relieved to know that he’s not the only one. Nathan’s smile is tight but genuine, and then he reaches for Audrey and pulls her into a hug, reaching one hand for Duke as well. Duke lets himself be beckoned, folds himself around them both and rests his cheek against the top of Audrey’s head.

            “We’ll figure it out,” Nathan promises them both when he lets go. “Nothin’ the three of us can’t work out together, later.”

            Duke reaches over and flicks a finger at the handmade signs taped to the tomato cages around their potted catnip plants. “You mean we’re not adopting kids tonight?” he jokes, pleased to see smiles sneak onto both their faces. “But Nathan, we have a cat, and we’ve cat-proofed a plant-”

            “Two plants,” Audrey corrects.

            “ _-two_ plants,” Duke adjusts without faltering. “We’re totally ready for kids.”

            Nathan rolls his eyes, but he cannot keep the smile at bay. Instead, he herds them out of the spare room, turning off the light as he passes the switch. He makes sure that the door is closed tight against feline intruders, and they head downstairs for dinner before Nathan and Audrey have to leave for their late shifts.

            The following morning, Duke wakes up still on the couch but alone, Oskar stretched out along the back of it. He reminds himself that Audrey and Nathan are just at work still, pulling a rare double, and plays with Oskar’s toes until his heart stops racing quite so hard. Then he picks himself up, showers, and heads down to the marina.

            It has been a few days since he visited, so he drops by the harbor master’s office to ensure everything is still okay with his boat. Beattie assures him the Rouge has been sitting pretty, that his repairs after getting her floated from where she’d been sunk are holding.

            He walks the length and breadth of the _Rouge_ , fingers trailing over the things left out on the deck. She doesn’t look the worse for wear, having spent a couple of months under the ocean instead of on top of it, but he can feel the change. She feels older, worn in a way that only a ship that has seen and done it all can. There is history in her hull, in the boards under his feet, in the ropes and chains which anchor her- _his_ history, all the life he had lead aboard her while abroad.

            What she lacks, sitting here calm and quiet in the harbor, is the promise of his future. He can feel retirement in the creak and shift of her bones, the peace of a work horse turned out to pasture and called upon only for loving grooming sessions and gentle trail rides.

            Below deck, he finds what he came looking for- a small, shabby pot with a smidge of green life climbing from the dirt within it. He rubs gentle fingers over one of the young leaves, a fond smile curling his lips.

            The plant is less than a month old and not the same as the ones he’d had for ages before the kraken sank the _Rouge_ , but he’d gotten the seeds from the same greenhouse, so he figures it’s close enough. It’s not like he needs a piece of Haven to take with him anymore, doesn’t need seeds or soil from the town to remind him of his roots, because he’s not going anywhere.

            This time, he is coming home.

            At the house, he settles the little plant between the two catnip plants on the window ledge, and scribbles a note to set against its stem.

 _Now there are tomatoes_.


	16. Chapter 16

            There are, Duke discovers, downsides to owning a cat.

            The first cold, wet hairball he steps on in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom is one of them.

            The number of extra cats that could be made out of the hair Oskar sheds is another.

            The fact that none of them can keep their seat if they get up, because she crawls right up to lay in the warm spot is… well, not exactly a problem, but it happens. Often.

            He is not sure _the witching hour_ , as Audrey calls it, is exactly a downside, but it certainly is an oddity when Oskar decides 11pm is _the perfect moment_ to go tearing from one area of the house to another at top cat speed with a low, terrifying yowl. Duke thinks she might be running _from_ something, until she does it six more times to various locations, and then pretends it never happened.

            The fact that this happens at least once a week and yet none of them can figure out _why_ is mildly concerning, until Duke attempts to discreetly ask other cat owners _what the hell_ and is assured it’s perfectly normal and no, no one else knows why either.

            Of course, he doesn’t mind that Oskar likes to sleep in bed with them, finds it mildly charming when she digs her way _under_ the covers to sleep between his legs. He is less charmed by the times she walks up his body with feet made of needles and pressure and somehow manages to find every soft spot to jab. It is an actual hazard the times she decides to try to sleep _on_ his face rather than _next_ to his head, and he wakes up spluttering, mouth full of fur.

            He has no explanation for why she doesn’t do those things to the others. She’ll sleep with them, lay near them, even on them sometimes, but she appears to reserve all maiming and murder attempts for Duke.

            Nathan tells him it’s because Oskar loves Duke best.

            Duke tells him that’s a load of crap, but he holds onto the fuzzy, pleasant feeling of that sentiment every morning he wakes up to Oskar kneading bruises into his ribcage with a great big purr.

            The dead mice are a little much. None of them are sure where she is getting them from, where she is even _finding_ mice, until Duke catches her slipping up from the basement, dust bunnies in her whiskers and a little brown corpse in her mouth.

            “It’s good that she’s… doing her job,” Nathan says tentatively when Duke tells him.

            “You just wish she’d stop leaving them in your shoes,” Duke concludes, trying very hard not to smile. She only leaves them in Nathan’s shoes.

            “Yeah,” Nathan sighs. “I can hunt my own mice.”

            “I’ve never seen you catch a mouse,” Duke says without inflection, somehow managing to keep a straight face.

            “I’ve caught at least 20 mice,” Nathan says back, giving Duke a blank look.

            “Did you leave them in her shoes?” Duke asks, and he can’t keep it up anymore, breaks into laughter as Nathan swats at him, though there is a slow smile curling at Nathan’s lips as well. “How’s she supposed to know you love her, if you don’t leave them in her shoes, Nathan!”

            Instead of replying, Nathan backs Duke up to the nearest wall, hands sneaking under fabric as he kisses him, shuts him up with tongue and teeth and the press of his thumbs against Duke’s hip bones to keep him still. He spends the next half hour showing Duke exactly how to love someone without leaving anything in their shoes.

            The worst of keeping this particular cat, though, is her penchant for attempting to murder all of their coffee mugs.

            None of them know what she has against mugs, but if she finds one on a surface, it becomes her civic duty to knock it onto the floor. They first suspect it is an accident, the cat walking past the mug and not looking at what she is doing, but after the fourth mug of spilled coffee, Nathan suggests it is becoming a pattern. Audrey catches her tapping at the side of a mug with one curious paw until it tips over the edge, and after that they all start being more careful about where they leave mugs.

It turns out that it doesn’t matter where they put them- the middle of the coffee table, up on the real table, on the countertop where she’s not even supposed to be… Audrey even tests locations like on top of the fridge and on the edge of the tub during a bath, and it makes no difference. Oskar finds them, bats them down to the floor, and then peeks over the edge as if wondering how that just happened.

They have to start drinking their coffee instead of letting it go cold, have to start putting their mugs in the sink or the dishwasher where they belong,and Duke thinks maybe it’s not such a bad habit for the cat to have.

            When all is said and done, however, Duke finds that her companionship far outweighs her bad habits.

            The first time he is sick, really, actually stay-home-in-bed-for-three-days sick, Oskar spends almost every second of it curled up within touching distance. She purrs like the rumble of her chest can cure what ails him, and he has no case to argue when he seems to fall asleep instantly to the comforting white noise beside his ear. He is grateful for company that doesn’t try to make him eat or drink or ask him how he’s feeling, and for the extra sleep that he thinks is probably a large part of the reason he recovers as quickly as he does.

            She still knocks his mug of tea off the nightstand, but he figures _that’s cats for you_ , and loves her anyway, faults and all.

 


	17. Chapter 17

            Duke doesn’t have a _lot_ to move into Nathan’s house, but what he does have _means_ a lot.

            The first box he packs into the Tramp holds his small collection of favorite books. Most of them are hardcover, several of them are first editions, and two of them are signed. He has traveled all over the world twice over, seen unbelievable, wondrous things, and because of this he knows that some of the final frontiers are found right at home between the covers of a good book.

            The second box he packs is a collection of music. Some of it is vinyl records - and he only brings those because he knows Nathan kept Garland’s record player - some of them are 8-tracks, but most of them are CDs. He has everything in digital copies, but he _likes_ having the physical copies of some of his tunes. They are weighty and he remembers where he picked up each one of them; knowing where he got them gives him a sense of where he’s been, gives him happy points in time in which he can anchor his life experiences.

            The third box he packs is his spice rack and the cooking utensils he knows Nathan doesn’t already own- or the ones he has made poor decisions about, at any rate. There are two cast iron pots included, carefully seasoned and cared for over the past decade, gifted to him along the road. Nathan’s knife set is about a hundred years old and while Duke would never get rid of it, he does want to be able to actually cut things.

            The last box he packs is small, full of the tiny, valuable things he has kept hidden in parts of his ship only he knows exist. None of them are particularly valuable, but they are priceless, to him. A little, brown pouch of rocks and shells collected by children on a beach, a ring made of twined bits of iron filigree, a pair of woven grass placemats (one much less skillfully made than the other), and a small bone carving of an otter, among others.

            All of these trinkets are things given to him freely by folks he met during his travels. Some of them took him in overnight or for long stretches, others gave him guidance when he needed it, still others taught him skills or languages or life lessons he was unlikely to forget.

            Some people - _most_ people - believe that it is the large events in Duke Crocker’s life that make him who he is; that it was winning the _Cape Rouge_ , or sailing the high seas, the smuggling lucrative items or the Big Jobs he pulled or the battles he had been in and sacrifices he had made since coming back to Haven.

            In fact, it is the little things that make Duke who he is. It is the memory of holding a baby for the first time in a port city of Spain while a household of people whirl around him making dinner. It is the soft feeling of a grateful woman grasping his hand in both of hers to thank him for moving them safely away from danger. It is the humbling weight of the stars pressing down upon him in the dead of night as he lets his ship drift upon the waves as she will.

            It is the flutter of happiness he feels every time he slips his key into the lock on the front door of his new home, and the high meow of a rescued stray as she greets him.

            It is the feeling of waking up to the scent of Nathan and Audrey all around him, the glow of the morning sun spilling over each of them in the bed beside him.

            It is the smile on Audrey’s face when she sees him drive up, four boxes containing the reality of their shared lives sitting in his trunk.

            She opens the front door so that they won’t have to use their hands, leaves it standing open as she crosses the front yard to help him unload. He kisses her hello, presses her gently against the side of his truck for just a split second, tasting that smile for all he is worth. Then they break apart, and Duke opens the trunk and lets her see the objects that matter most to him.

            “More than I moved with,” is all she says, grabbing the closest box, the one containing his most valuable things. He is surprised when his heart doesn’t leap, when he feels no need to protect those things from Audrey; he trusts her.

            Instead, he grabs the heaviest box, the one with the pots and spices and utensils, and begins to follow her toward the house. They are halfway there, half a dozen steps from the door, when movement to their left catches Duke’s eye.

            A small, grey flash disappears into the bushes.

            “Shit!” he cusses, nearly dropping his box and somehow managing to get it to the ground without breaking anything. Audrey startles and looks at him with wide eyes as he bounds across the distance between her and where Oskar disappeared.

            “Duke?” He barely hears her call.

            “Oskar!” he calls back, knowing he sounds frantic, but there is no sign of a cat anywhere around the side of the house. He skirts the next corner, but the backyard is just as devoid of grey tabby. He spits out a few more curses to cover his panic, and then heads back to where Audrey is setting down her box to help.

            “She got out?” Audrey asks, sounding worried.

            Duke knows it is not her fault; Oskar had been around an open front door for a long time now and never made an attempt to escape. There is no way Audrey could have predicted Oskar would bolt in the minute that they were moving boxes. That knowledge doesn’t make him feel any better. He still has to give himself to the count of ten before he is capable of responding without lashing out.

            “I didn’t see where she went, but she can’t have gotten far,” he says evenly, paced in a way that makes it hard to raise his voice. He stoops to pick up his box of stuff, and heads for the house. “Just- let’s get these two inside and then we can go look for her.”

            Audrey hesitates, but after he has passed her, she picks up her box and follows him into the house. They don’t bother putting the boxes anywhere but just inside the door, and then Audrey shuts it behind them as they head back out.

            “I’m going to call Nathan,” Audrey says, already pulling out her phone.

            “That’s great,” Duke replies, faster than he means, more snappish. “He can put out an APB.”

            Audrey makes a small noise, a disapproving noise. “Don’t do that,” she tells him firmly. “We’ll find her. Nathan can get off early to come help.”

            Duke takes a deep, calming breath and then leaves Audrey on the front porch to call Nathan. He knows that he shouldn’t snap at her, feels bad because he knows she is just as worried as he is. The notes of stress in her tone when she begins to talk to Nathan make her voice climb higher than normal.

            “Oskar!” Duke calls softly, familiar _tch tch tch_ noise rolling off his tongue. It’s a long shot that she would still be in range to hear him, but he holds hope that she wouldn’t want to go far because the alternative makes his belly swoop in fear. “Oskaaaar!”

            “Nathan’s on his way,” Audrey says softly when she joins him, poking at the bushes that edge up to the house. Nothing moves in response. “Dwight’s coming with him. Kit-kit-kit-kit!”

            Together they comb the backyard, though to no avail. Audrey sends him off to their closest left-side neighbor while she approaches the right-side neighbors. Duke goes three more houses down the way asking people to keep an eye out for her before Nathan finds him to catch up on the search.

            “We’ll find her,” Nathan assures him with a quick squeeze of his hand.

            “She doesn’t know where she is,” Duke tells him, feeling sick. Reassurances at this point aren’t helping him; it sounds hollow, more like someone trying to convince themselves than anything else. “We took her away from the Gull and kept her inside and she isn’t used to this kind of cold anymore and-”

            “Duke,” Nathan says firmly, taking Duke’s face in both hands and holding even when Duke balks. There is calm in the pressure of Nathan’s fingers on his jaw, steadiness in the blue of his eyes as he lets his patience get the better of Duke’s nerves. “We will find her. She will be fine.”

            Tension drains from Duke’s muscles and he brings his hands up to grasp around Nathan’s wrists. Nathan adjusts his grip, moving his hands to either side of Duke’s neck for stability, but doesn’t let go until Duke nods.

            “Where’s Dwight?” Duke asks, considerably more settled.

            “Went to find Audrey,” Nathan answers, finally shifting his attention away from Duke and to their surroundings. “Where have you looked?”

            “Our backyard, and I talked to the neighbors between there and here. Hasn’t been long,” Duke admits. She probably hasn’t gotten far, hadn’t looked like she was _bolting_ , exactly.

            “Okay,” Nathan says. “I can stay here with you, or I can pick a different direction, or I can take a drive around nearby streets, see if I see anything. What do you want me to do?”

            Nathan’s voice is so _steady_ , even and firm, putting control of something - _anything_ \- back into Duke’s hands for just a moment and making his head spin a little in relief. “Yeah, driving, that- that would be good. We don’t need four people on foot.”

Instead of answering, Nathan just nods. Duke watches until he is two houses away before returning to his own search.

            At some point in the next few hours, Audrey and Dwight check in with him via phone. Dwight tells him Lizzie is making lost posters, which makes Duke feel simultaneously better and worse, though he just asks Dwight to tell her thanks because he knows she means well, even if Duke desperately doesn’t want to admit Oskar is _lost_. Audrey tells him that Nathan told her he was calling shelters, and that he also told her not to tell Duke that; Duke is grateful Audrey understands he’ll take any help at all at this point.

            Nearly an hour after dark, Nathan drives up alongside him and hands him a foil-wrapped burrito and a flashlight. There hasn’t been any news on his end yet, though Duke suspects between the four of them that half the town is probably keeping an eye out for their cat now.

            Duke leans against the door of the Bronco as he eats, listening to Nathan list off where he’s been and who he talked to along the way. Duke pays close attention when Nathan tells him about tips and tricks he was told about finding lost animals, and Duke knows they’ll all be leaving their shirts on the front porch tonight in case Oskar comes back close enough to smell them.

            When he has finished eating, he kisses Nathan’s cheek and thanks him for the food and the flashlight. “I don’t think we’re gonna find her in the dark,” he admits.

            “No,” Nathan agrees. Duke realizes that Nathan will stay out as long as Duke needs, and so he circles around the Bonco to get in the passenger side. Nathan looks surprised, but he puts the car in gear.

            “Could we-” Duke starts, and then starts over. “Before we go home, can we swing by the Gull? I just…” He trails off, knowing it’s a silly request; if Oskar has made it as far as the Gull, he will be surprised, but he wants to leave food and water out for her just in case. Worst case scenario, she spends a cold night at the restaurant wondering why there is food but not human.

            Nathan clears his throat, doesn’t look at him when he speaks. “I called,” Nathan says, slow and uncertain, like he’s not sure of his place. “Tracy put out kibble from your office, and a bowl of water. She also said everything is fine, don’t come in.”

            For a long moment, Duke just sits staring out the windshield without focus, mind flickering in so many directions at once that it stands still. Audrey, Dwight, and Nathan have all spent their day searching for his lost pet cat with him. His employees at his restaurant are helping and covering for him so he doesn’t have to deal with more responsibility tonight. His neighbors, the people who live in the houses around his house, have all each and every one of them made sympathetic sounds and agreed to help however they can- several of them even came out immediately to help thoroughly search their yards.

            And all Duke can think is _when_.

            He can’t put his finger on what point in time he became someone people _cared about_ like this, when he found himself surrounded by folks willing to drop what they were doing to help him for no reason except that he needed help.

            “Hey,” Nathan says, tone balanced between reassurance and concern.

            Duke swipes at his eyes with the end of one sleeve and hunkers down into the corner made by the seat back and the door. “I’m fine,” he manages, voice cracking.

            Nathan doesn’t take the hint right away, continues to stare at him for a few seconds, and then lets out a breath that sounds like a decision. “It’s okay not to be,” he says, but it doesn’t feel like pressure. He just pulls away from the curb, and takes them home.

            When they arrive, Audrey is standing on the front porch talking quietly with Dwight. She looks exhausted, arms folded and shoulders pulled in against the cold. When their headlights roll over her, she looks up, hope brightening her eyes for a brief few seconds until she realizes there are only humans in the car.

            Nathan grabs the bag of carry-out from the bench between them as soon as he’s shut off the engine, though he waits for Duke to get out and close his door before he heads for the house. Duke trails behind, dragging his feet and his flashlight around the bushes _just in case_. He waves to Dwight as the other man passes, heading for his own car.

            Audrey and Nathan kiss their hellos in a way that whispers about distraction and worry, and Audrey presses into Duke’s side as soon as he is within range.

            “No luck?” she asks, even though it’s obvious.

            “No,” he confirms, shutting off his flashlight. He needed a break, they all needed a break, but he figures after Nathan and Audrey are asleep, he can come back out to keep looking. It’s not like he’ll sleep anyway.

            Audrey holds Nathan back so that Duke is the first one in the house. He hears her murmur about the boxes in his car and vaguely remembers that today was supposed to be move-in day. There are two boxes of his things in the front room that agree, but it doesn’t feel quite like home without Oskar weaving around his feet in greeting. It certainly doesn’t feel like the happy occasion it was supposed to be, with everyone stressed and worried.

            Before he’s made it across the room, Audrey and Nathan are carrying in the last two boxes of his belongings. He manages a smile and then takes the books away from Audrey mostly because she is trying to balance her dinner on top of them. They shuffle around until the boxes are mostly out of the way and Audrey all but throws herself onto the couch with her burrito. Nathan goes to the kitchen to fetch drinks for all of them as Duke takes a seat on the opposite side of the couch from Audrey.

            Duke listens to Audrey crinkling the foil of her burrito, to Nathan shifting around in the kitchen, the clink of glasses and the rush of water. It is not so quiet he can hear his own heartbeat, but he can feel it in his fingertips as he tries to wind himself down from the day. Audrey turns and puts her toes under his thigh, cold against his jeans.

            He takes a long, slow breath and leans back, chin tipping up as he rests his head against the back of the couch.

            From somewhere in the vicinity of the bathroom, he hears a soft, dragging sound, and he lifts his head to look.

            A second later, Oskar trots around the corner, tail flagged up and ears forward like she hasn’t just caused the worst day of his life in _months_. She stops a few feet from them and stretches long and languid, before eyeballing Audrey’s burrito where it has frozen halfway to her mouth.

            “Did I fall asleep?” Audrey asks, without looking away from the cat.

            “No, I see her too,” Duke tells her. He gets up and heads for the hallway, intending to find out where she got out of the house- a window? a vent? a hole in the wall? It certainly wasn’t the front door, he’s sure of that now.

            From the family room behind him, he hears Nathan’s exclamation of surprise and delight at finding Oskar. Duke pokes his nose into all of the rooms on the first floor, but the windows are closed up tight and nothing seems to be out of place. He is on his way to go upstairs when he notices the linen closet door is ajar.

            He stops in front of it, tugs it open enough that he can see inside. On the second shelf from the bottom, there is a small, furry indent, evidence of _cat slept here_ as clear as day. He closes his eyes and counts to ten before closing the door again.

            “Duke?” Nathan asks when he reappears.

            “Apparently, she was asleep in the linen closet all day,” Duke announces.

            They take turns trading looks at each other and at the cat before Audrey gives a laugh that is startling in the near silence. The tightness in Duke’s chest loosens at the sight of Nathan’s answering smile. Everything is _fine_.

            “I can’t believe we didn’t even think to look inside the house,” Audrey marvels, sounding every bit as embarrassed as Duke feels. Granted, he’d been _certain_ he saw her ass-end disappearing into the brush, but it hadn’t even occurred to him to make sure.

            He scrubs a hand over his hair, dragging it down the back of his neck. “So who’s gonna tell Dwight?” That is the last necessary quip to break the tense mood as both Nathan and Audrey put a finger on their own nose to declare they are Not It. “Okay, but I’m not telling him she was here all along. I’m telling him she came back on her own. Which is technically not a lie.”

            “We’ll take your secret to our graves,” Audrey swears for them both. She leans down over the edge of the couch and lifts Oskar into her lap. “And tomorrow, I think we’ll get you a collar, just in case.”

            This time, Duke lets himself smile for real, because this is it. This is the worst day he has had in several months. The worst problem he has had in _months_ is a missing cat that was not actually ever missing. No one had been in danger of being injured or killed. The world’s continued existence hadn’t depended on his actions. It hadn’t even delayed his moving in by a whole day.

            In fact, the worst consequence is going to be calling Dwight to admit they had wasted his time on an unnecessary search.

            Which is exactly the sort of dire consequence Duke thinks he can get used to.


	18. Chapter 18

            The first snow of the new year comes on a Tuesday. It is the heavy kind of snow that is too thickly packed to drift, the kind that sticks to gloves and hair and eyelashes and makes dreams of snowmen and snow ball wars come to life. It muffles the sounds of the world, blanketing everything in pure-white silence, giving the entire town an otherworldly feel.

            Duke wakes first, the unusual brightness of the bedroom tugging him out of sleep. It’s a second-shift day, one where they all get to sleep in together, make a lazy breakfast and eat it sprawled on the couches. Sometimes Nathan makes pancakes, other times Duke makes waffles. On rare occasion, Audrey beats them into the kitchen and makes eggs and hash browns and bacon and toast and insists they eat at the table for once in their lives.

            This time, Duke curls up a little tighter around Audrey and presses his nose into the nape of her neck. She shifts, her hand finding his where it is tucked around her belly, and then she settles back into sleep.

            At some point simply _later_ , Nathan stirs, lifts his face out of the pillow and looks blearily at the brightly lit window. “It snowed,” he says, and Duke drags his eyes open to look even though he already knows.

            “Too bad you two don’t get snow days,” Duke tells him, the last word lost in his yawn. Audrey squirms against him at the way his breath tickles at her hair. “We could go sledding.”

            At that, Audrey laughs. “You do have a sled,” she tells them. “But you’ll have to share.”

            Nathan cracks a smile and wiggles over so that she is sandwiched close between them, kisses her nose and her cheeks and her forehead until her laughter becomes too contagious to continue. “We’ve gotten good at sharing,” Nathan says when she quiets, props himself up on one elbow so that he can pull Duke into a good-morning kiss over her shoulder.

            Duke lets him, enjoys the slide of lips, the touch of Nathan’s nose against his, the soft heat that sparks low in his belly before he pulls away. “We could also just stay in bed,” Duke suggests, enjoying the tingle of happiness that rides their answering smiles. “We could eat breakfast in bed. I will even go make it.”

            “Ooo,” Audrey coos, then looks imploringly at Nathan. “Breakfast in bed?”

            A soft hum of agreement is all the answer Nathan gives, but it is enough to cause Duke to extract himself from Audrey. Even though he’s doing so by her request, she makes grumbly noises of protest in response, cursory in nature but still the kind that leaves him with a warm feeling of belonging. Nathan echoes the sentiment without words, stretching toes over the end of the bed for last-second contact as Duke slips out of the bedroom.

            Oskar meets him in the hallway, tail up and eyes bright. He’s not sure what she gets up to while they are all asleep, but she only stays in bed as long as the light is gone. It’s a blessing, he supposes, that she just _leaves_ instead of trying to wake all of them up as well. He’s heard enough stories to know some cats do that, and he’s grateful that is not one of her bad habits.

            Downstairs, he cannot help but walk first to the back door, practically putting his nose to the glass to see what the snow has done. Everything is white, from the sky to the houses to the ground. Every twig on every branch on every tree has a layer of snow on it, turning the trees into ethereal caricatures of their true forms. It’s been years since he saw a proper winter; before Audrey, he’d spent as much of the winter as he could in tropical places. After her… well, nothing had been proper or normal in Haven.

            This, though, this is normal. Snow on the ground and silence in the air and a sense of peace threaded through everything so perfectly that Duke has difficulty remembering how _unnatural_ once felt.

            In this world, the snow has changed everything it touches; it paints over the blemishes, smooths out the rough spots, covers up all the ugliness of the past and leaves behind only beautiful new potential.

            Oskar meows and weaves around his feet before standing up on her haunches, paws to the glass to see over the foot of snow that presses up against the door.

            “It’s too cold out there for kitties,” he tells her, and she looks up at the sound of his voice and meows again. “No, you can’t go out there.” She meows in answer, and Duke sighs.

            After her not-escape, Duke had gotten her a reflective, hunter-orange collar with a tag that had her name and his cell phone number on it. So far they haven’t had reason to let her outside; it had been cold and windy and all three of them are still nervous about losing her. Despite - or maybe because of - her time spent as a stray, she hasn’t seemed inclined to want to go outside, which has been working out for them.

            If she wants out now, in the cold and the snow, well, Duke’s never been one to refuse a lady her wishes and she _is_ wearing her collar. Even if she wants to, Duke doesn’t think she’ll get very far, and in so much snow they will definitely be able to track her.

            “Okay,” he tells her. “You’re not gonna like it though.”

            He twitches the door just enough to let her know he’s going to open it, and she drops back to all four paws to wait. Carefully, he slides the door open, giving a little shiver as cold air washes over his bare skin. He wonders if the snow will fall in without the added support, but it stays in a perfectly formed wall of white. He steps out of the way and Oskar sits back on her haunches enough to see over the top, stretching her neck just a little while considering.

            Duke is nothing if not patient as he stands in the path of the cold and watches her take her time judging whether or not she actually wants to go outside now that the door is open. She drops to all fours, and then lifts again, repeats this most uncertain of actions twice more before apparently making a decision.

            She crouches down and takes a leap out onto the snow-

            -and lands up to her ears in it.

            Duke’s bark of laughter feels overly loud, but he cannot help himself when he sees the look of utter betrayal on her face. Whatever she had expected, landing buried in a foot of snow was not it.

            “I told you!” he says through his laughter, trying to figure out if he can lean out far enough to pick her up and bring her back inside the house.

            Instead, she makes a second leap, jumping as if she can somehow get away from the snow by just going further into the yard. Once again, she nearly disappears into the snow, and this time she tries to trudge forward, creating a cat-sized trench in the snow for a couple of struggled feet before stopping. Duke can hardly breathe he is laughing so hard, but he knows he is going to have to do something about the situation when she starts yowling in distress.

            Luckily, there are slippers by the back door. Even though it is cold, Duke puts them on and picks his way through the snow to reach her side, hoping that none of their neighbors are looking out the window to catch an eyeful of him rescuing their furball from the evil snow in just his boyfriend’s boxers.

            She clings with all of her claws when he picks her up, eyes wide and ears back, but he holds her so that her claws don’t drag. He takes her over to the couch and sits down with her until she relaxes enough to let go.

            “You big baby,” he tells her, stroking her ears, careful of the old scars from her days fighting other strays. “It’s just a little snow.”

            She butts her head into his hand one last time before squirming out of his grasp and disappearing up the stairs, more than likely to seek refuge with the warm bodies in the bedroom. Duke clambers to his feet and ambles into the kitchen to make good on his promise of breakfast.

            He doesn’t make it all the way to breakfast _in bed_ as the vanilla-and-spices scent of cooking french toast draws his barely-clothed, would-be breakfast-in-bedmates down to the kitchen. Audrey sits in her bra and panties on the smidge of countertop he is not using, a mug of fresh coffee clasped in her hands and her eyes tracking his motions. For his part, Nathan stands exactly where Duke needs to be at any given moment, a small smirk at the corner of his lips, moving only at the last second.

            Without any sort of verbal discussion, they all bypass the table and pile onto the softer seating in the front room. Audrey scoots in ahead of them and curls up in the plush armchair, tucking her feet in under her and ensuring her boys will sit next to one another on the couch. Duke very nearly copies her, sitting sideways on the couch with his back up against the arm so he can reach down to sneak Oskar little bits of bacon or french toast.

            “Why is she wet?” Nathan asks, nudging Duke’s foot with his own in a silent reprimand for feeding the cat people food. Duke responds by accidentally-on-purpose dropping another bit of bacon within Oskar’s reach.

            “She wanted to go outside, so I let her,” Duke says cautiously, not looking at Nathan or Audrey. He can’t help the smile that worms its way onto his face at the memory. “She jumped into the snow and found out she didn’t want to be outside anymore.”

            “Is that why you were cracking up earlier?” Audrey asks, then makes a quiet _tch tch tch_ to call Oskar’s attention to her instead. Nathan sighs as soon as she passes Oskar a little of her own bacon.

            Duke nods, still grinning, and they lapse into the companionable silence of eating a good meal. Nathan gets up first, when it seems as if everyone is done, and collects plates and silverware, offers to bring back more drinks in a way which clearly indicates they are not done lounging around just yet.

            Oskar hops into his vacated seat and plops down in the warm spot left behind. Nathan very nearly takes a seat on the floor rather than oust her, but Duke leans over and hauls her into his lap for a little bit of cuddling instead. Duke scritches around her ears, strokes down her back, curls his fingers around her shoulders, and finds himself touching the edges of her collar, jingling her new little tag.

            “Do you ever wonder who she belonged to?” he blurts before he can think not to. He looks up to find both of them giving him confused looks. “Before us.”

            “She didn’t belong to anyone,” Nathan says. “She was a stray.”

            “Yeah but she-” He fumbles for a second, trying to put his thought into words. “She was just a stray, she wasn’t _feral_. She was scared and hungry and sick and alone, but she wasn’t just some wild cat.” He swallows and manages to meet Nathan’s eyes. “Not with the way she took to you. Not with the way she took to… all this.”

            “No one’s looking for her,” Audrey says quietly, and when Duke looks, he knows she isn’t trying to argue a point or defend their keeping Oskar. When the Shroud descended, the Troubles took a lot of lives.

            “Yeah,” Duke says, chest tight. He’d looked. In those first couple of weeks, he’d looked for Lost Cat flyers, maybe not quite actively, but he’d caught himself checking poster boards and telephone poles. He’d left her description with the closest shelter, in case anyone called to look for her. No one had.

            They sit in silence for a little while, Duke’s fingers sifting through Oskar’s fur as she rubs her face into his hands and purrs. Nathan watches his motions blankly, like he’s not really seeing anything, and Audrey chews her lip in thought. Duke doesn’t need to ask what they are thinking; the misfortune of their shared pasts is scrawled in the lines of their faces.

            “I worry,” he breathes out, just barely breaking the silence. They both look over at him, concern replacing the hurt, and he’s grateful for that even if it makes it harder to find the words for what he wants to say. “I let her out this morning only because there was nowhere for her to go. But I don’t know what will happen if she could go anywhere she wanted. No one’s looking for her, but she might go looking for them. Or what if she just _leaves_ , you know?”

            Audrey trades a look with Nathan, the kind that says they’ve talked about something they want to share. Duke shifts uncomfortably, wondering what nerve he struck, and looks back at Nathan when Nathan turns to him.

            “I used to wonder the same thing about you,” Nathan says softly, blue eyes searching Duke’s.

            Duke’s brows draw together in confusion. “Think-?”

            “Wonder,” Nathan corrects, but gently, his tension a reflection of his concern for Duke’s reaction. “I used to wonder _how long_.” He ducks his head a little, a blush climbing the back of his neck. “You’d gone all over the world, seen and done… everything. Had your choice of partners. You came back with this… whole other life, and I used to wonder how long it would be before you decided to go looking for it again.”

            Oskar meows and squirms in Duke’s over-tight grasp, wriggling down to the floor. “But you know I- I’m not going anywhere.” He looks to Audrey, heart on his sleeve. “You both know that, don’t you?” They had to know; he’d been very clear about it, he was sure. He had come here, had brought his things here, put down roots both figuratively and literally.

            “We know that,” Audrey says soothingly, offering up a comforting smile, and Duke remembers the soft way she had said _you’re not just staying here_. He relaxes, just a little, and turns his gaze back to Nathan for reassurance.

            “ _Used to_ ,” Nathan repeats, his own smile soft and warm now. “But the worst of two worlds got thrown at us, and you’re still here, and now you… you have a home.” He swallows nervously, smile faltering just a little. “And a- a family. So I- I don’t wonder that anymore.”

            Duke scrubs at one eye with the heel of his hand, heart in his throat, and then crawls across the space between them instead of trying to use his words. Nathan’s heart beats a little too quickly under the press of his fingers along Nathan’s jaw as Duke kisses him for everything his confession is worth to Duke.

            “It’s true that I have been all over the world, done all sorts of things, met all sorts of people,” Duke murmurs when he pulls back, forehead still pressed against Nathan’s. He opens his eyes, moves just enough to see Nathan as Audrey joins them on the couch. “And that’s how I know there is nothing in the whole world better than what we have right. here.” He kisses either side of Nathan’s smile on the last words, and then shifts so he can see Audrey, touch her, lean to kiss her as well. “So neither of you have to wonder _how long_ ever again.”

            “Won’t,” Nathan promises tangling their fingers.

            “Besides, if you take off, we’ll just have Lizzie make lost posters with your face on them and send Dwight after you,” Audrey adds with an impish grin.

            Duke knows he flushes at the tease, but a part of him recognizes that she’s only half joking; they want him here. They want him to want to be there, with them, and they are both willing to fight to ensure he comes home safely.

            “Thanks,” he says dryly, nudging at her. She laughs and slithers off the couch to head for the bedroom, most likely to actually get dressed for the day. She hesitates after a few steps, and turns to look at him.

            “I don’t think you have to worry about Oskar, either,” she says quietly. “Whatever… _bad things_ happened out there, whatever life she had before you, before _us_ … this is her home now. Nathan’s right. We’re a family- you and me and Nathan and Oskar. Even if she goes out looking, I think she’ll always come back here. Just like you.”

            Duke smiles and lets Nathan herd him off of the couch to join Audrey, but he hangs back when he reaches the stairs. Nathan passes him, pausing long enough to give him a curious look, and then follows Audrey upstairs. When they are out of sight, Duke moves away from the bottom of the steps and back to where Oskar has curled up in Audrey’s abandoned warm spot.

            Gently, he drops to his knees, folding his arms along the edge of the chair, and hears the faint sound of Oskar’s motor starting up at his presence. Shifting, he strokes one finger from the tip of her nose to the top of her head and her purr revs into a most appreciative rumble. With a great big yawn, she lifts her head to look at him, a high noise of interest seeping through her purr.

            In his heart, he knows Audrey is right. He has a lot in common with the little stray at his fingertips, and he knows that no matter what else is out in the entire rest of the world, it is not worth anything compared to the home he has made here with the people who matter to him most. There is nowhere he’d rather be or go.

            Like Oskar, he is happy right where he is.


	19. Chapter 19

            The first time they let Oskar outside for real, it is not quite the apocalypse Duke feared. He carries her out, bundled in his arms, after checking her collar half a dozen times, and then sets her gently in the middle of the yard under the watchful stares of Nathan and Audrey. She shakes herself off, looks up at him, looks over at Nathan and Audrey in turn, and then trots back into the house through the open back door.

            “Clearly, we should be worried,” Audrey says, though her smile is edged with the same kind of relief Duke feels.

            “Come on,” Nathan tells them both, hand at the small of Audrey’s back to move her toward the shed at the back of the yard. “Garden’s not gonna dig itself.”

            She makes cursory noises of protest and takes the cleanest-looking shovel, but neither of the boys miss the way her eyes light up at the prospect of having a  _ real live garden they made themselves _ . Three weeks ago, Nathan promised they could have raised garden beds, and Audrey had not let it go since. Bill is supposed to be showing up with the boxes in a couple of hours, and they are supposed to have the spots picked out and dug up by then.

            Thankfully the ground has thawed considerably in the past week and it rained the night prior to loosen the soil. Spring is warm in the soft breeze stirring the air, the sky a clear, crystal shade of blue, and the sun promises to shine brightly the whole day.

            Nathan insists on starting with the front garden beds instead of the backyard like they are supposed to be doing. There’s a lot of mulch decaying in them, along with some plant matter that was probably flowers or bushes, or possibly just wild overgrowth that had cropped up in the absence of proper care, but all of it is dead or still dormant and thus fair game for removal.

            There are two plants Nathan calls as off-limits.

            The first is a bleeding-heart bush, which Duke remembers Nathan saying was from his mother. It’s one of the only things in the garden that looks like it’s been tended to, the dead stalks cropped and the bush piled with mulch to overwinter safely. Audrey has never seen one, or thinks she hasn’t which amounts to the same thing, and so they take a break to look up pictures. The look on her face when she sees the flowers is more than enough of a reason to keep the plant, even if it didn’t have sentimental value to Nathan.

            The second plant Nathan insists on keeping is a rose bush that neither Audrey nor Duke need to ask about. Nathan planted it shortly after Garland died, a living plant that someone had brought to the memorial service instead of cut flowers. It is fitting, Duke figures, to keep these two when they are changing everything else.

            Most of the way through the largest of the beds, Bill McShaw pulls up in a work truck, the frames for the raised gardens sticking up in the bed of the truck. Audrey makes a delighted noise at their arrival, and they all take turns greeting Bill before helping to unload the vehicle.

            Audrey and Bill carry the first one, and Nathan and Duke follow with the second. There are four in total, and as they are arranging them on the lawn, Duke begins to understand why Nathan didn’t want to start digging at random. Now that she can see the frames, Audrey changes her mind at least six times about how she wants to arrange them, before settling on a sort of zig-zag pattern across the yard.

            They each take a frame and it doesn’t take long to have the outlines dug so that they know what spaces they need to hollow out for installation. Halfway through, Duke realizes that Oskar has been sitting on the cement patio watching them, and that they completely forgot to close the door behind her earlier. Softly, so as not to startle cat or companions, he points it out to Audrey and Nathan, who both turn to see.

            “I’m honestly surprised she’s not over here trying to help,” Audrey says, leaning on her shovel handle. “Cats like to dig, right?”

            Duke and Nathan trade a look and Duke hides his smile by turning back to digging. “Dogs,” Nathan tells her with a slow smile. “You’re thinking dogs.”

            Audrey raises her brows in a way that usually indicates someone is in trouble. “Really?” She says it like it’s an argument all on its own, and then adds: “Tell that to Miss Diggy over there next time she gets into the litter box. I’m pretty sure  _ that _ cat likes to dig.”

            “Yours too?” Bill laughs, drawing their attention. “Princess likes to root around in her litter box too. Sometimes I think she’ll do it forever if we don’t stop her.”

Audrey gives both of her boys a look that says  _ see? _ and Nathan holds up his hands in surrender before turning back to work.

            It doesn’t take long for Oskar to prove Audrey even more correct when she cautiously approaches the area where Duke is digging. She steps down into the raw dirt like it might actually be lava, shaking her paws after every step until she is standing in the middle of the square. Tentatively, she reaches one paw out and pats at the loose earth, and then scrapes at it as if testing to see what it will do.

            When it moves under her paw, she jumps up, eyes wide, and stands staring at it while all of the humans try their best not to laugh aloud and startle her further. “It’s just dirt, kitty-kitty,” Audrey tells her.

            Oskar flicks one ear in acknowledgement of Audrey’s word, but keeps her attention focused on the dirt. Duke wonders if she’s been inside so long that she’s forgotten what dirt is.

            After another moment of staring, Oskar paws at the dirt again, and then to everyone’s surprise, flop-rolls into it and begins to twist and flop back and forth.

            “She’s gonna be filthy,” Duke says, without moving to stop her at all.

            Audrey turns back to digging in her own garden bed. “That sounds like a  _ you  _ problem,” she tells him with a smirk. Though Duke can see his smile, Nathan doesn’t comment, just returns to work as well.

            Duke sighs and looks back down at Oskar, and then digs his shovel into the soil with one foot. He somehow manages to keep a straight face when he says: “At least cats are self-cleaning.”

            The laughs from both his partners are priceless.

            It takes them almost a week to finish digging out all of the places they want to garden. The old bushes take the longest to uproot, and in the end they decide to tie the stumps to one of the trucks and pull them out rather than keep digging. Audrey records it once on her phone, just so she can listen to the sound of the roots tearing free a few more times.

            Bill drops by twice more with wooden constructs for them. The first time he leaves them with four climbing racks for vine vegetables. They all make agreeable noises until Bill is on his way again, and then both Duke and Audrey turn to Nathan for an explanation, as he is the one who ordered them.

            “I want green beans,” he says simply. “They need to climb.”

            Duke and Audrey spend that evening on the computer looking up other vine plants, and discover  _ squash hammocks _ . Audrey attempts to be a mature adult about the idea, but Duke makes no such efforts and by the end of the evening even Nathan has been drawn into chuckling about the idea as well. After much discussion that is mostly snickering, the settle on butternut squash as their candidate for such shenanigans.

            The next day, after their shifts, Audrey and Nathan swing by to pick up Duke, and they visit the little, local quilting shop in town together. Though Duke and Audrey paw through all of the fabrics like children in a candy store, Nathan still browses with his hands in his pockets.

            By the time Nathan reaches the cutting counter with his selection, the other two have got a pile of random fabrics. Duke has picked out six different fabrics, all of them dyed in beautiful colors and pictureless patterns, things that look like swirls of ocean water and open, cloud-covered skies. Audrey has three fabrics picked out, all of them with pictures of objects on them. One is black with pictures of stacks of pancakes all over it, another is cream with pictures of waffles all over it, and the last is a pretty shade of blue with lighthouses and seabirds and beaches on it.

            Almost shyly, Nathan lays his selection next to theirs, and Duke finds himself smiling and bundling up his own fabric. “You win,” he says softly, picking up Nathan’s bolt of fabric instead and holding it up for Audrey to see.

            “Yeah, that’s the one,” she agrees, looking over at Nathan with bright eyes. She takes the bolt of grey-tabby-cat fabric and passes it to the lady behind the counter to cut. “We’ll take two yards of this.”

            That evening, they make squash hammocks together on the floor of the family room. Oskar lies in the middle of the project area, batting at their scraps until squash hammock making turns into cat-toy making. Audrey ties leftover strips into a ball with squiggly ends. Nathan knots strips together into one long string and Duke ties a bundle of odd-shapes scraps to the end of it. Oskar chases the string until she is panting, and then goes to sprawl out on the kitchen floor.

            Almost two weeks later, Bill returns with something that looks like a vertical puzzle of some kind. It has six wooden bins lined with plastic bins, in a rotating spiral up a wooden post. Bill explains that it is for smaller plants, strawberries or garlic or green onions or herbs they want to be able to bring indoors. He tells them it is a housewarming gift, even though he knows exactly how long Nathan has been living in the house; they are grateful for the support.

            The tower gets brought inside, mostly because the outside is still in danger of frost, and fill all of the bins with dirt. Nathan plants a few cloves of garlic that have begun to sprout, as well as a couple of potatoes that haven’t yet. Audrey wants to plant the catnip in the bins, but Nathan and Duke both argue that it has to be planted in the front garden.

            “You can’t plant it outside,” she tells them, sounding slightly horrified.

            “I looked it up,” Duke argues back. “It can totally survive this climate.”

            “The climate, maybe, but not the  _ cats _ ,” Audrey says after rolling her eyes. “Oskar’s not the only cat that ever lived outdoors, the neighbors two houses down have a calico that’s outside  _ all the time _ . You remember what happened to the third plant, right?”

            “I remember you didn’t let me give it a proper burial,” Duke says.

            “There wasn’t enough of it  _ left _ for a burial,” Audrey reminds him, brows raised.

            Duke considers arguing the case further, but Nathan comes to the rescue before he can open his mouth. “We have two plants. We could put one in the tower and one in the garden.”

            Which is exactly what they end up doing, when they are finally, finally,  _ finally _ past the last potential day for frost. Audrey has marked it on the calendar, and made sure that they have the day off of work. They are surprised when, just after finishing their breakfast, Gloria and Vicki turn up with little Aaron in tow to help. He is nearly two, more than mobile, and ready to garden.

            Which is unfortunate, because they had planned far enough ahead to have the garden beds and the soil and the tools ready, but they still hadn’t gone out to buy actual plants. Vicki comes to the rescue, and stays at the house with Aaron while Audrey, Nathan, Duke, and Gloria all pile into the Bronco and drive off to the nearest nursery.

            Audrey, who has no concept of which plants will produce how much, picks up at least three of everything at first. Her argument is that everything is better in threes, which the boys can’t really argue and Gloria won’t touch that particular theory, but they do end up settling on varied numbers of plants.

            Once they return home, everyone begins taking plants out of the bed of the truck. Audrey gives Aaron a small, plastic container   of strawberry plants to carry around to the back of the house, and Gloria supervises every shaky step of his intrepid journey. Audrey and Vicki each take one flat of baby plants to the back, and then settle into sorting which plants go where. Vicki is more organized than the rest of them, separating them into some sort of order by types of plants.

            She designates the far right box as  _ the roots _ , and they plant redskin, white, and sweet potatoes, sweet onions, carrots, and end up relegating the broccoli there when it doesn’t fit anywhere else. Nathan sits in the dirt and oversees Aaron digging holes with his tiny, plastic spade, and they both get quickly filthy.

            The box next to that, Vicki designates for peppers and tomatoes, simply because they picked up so many different kinds of them. Big beefsteak tomatoes and little cherry and grape tomatoes and more romas than she thinks are strictly necessary, despite Duke’s assurances that he will use every single one of them. He makes sure that the tomatoes go at the center of the box, and rings them with the peppers- green and  red, jalepeños,  habañeros, and chili peppers. He sneaks a small, innocent-looking ghost-pepper plant into one corner, because he is mean but so is Nathan, and they never did get around to trying them as teenagers just to see who could stand it the longest.

            Partway through declaring the third box will be for all their leafy greens, Tracey shows up with a trunk full of little pots. Everyone else looks around in confusion, but Duke just beams. The pots are full of herb plants, ones he had started growing in the back office of the Grey Gull after reconstruction. They were thriving, to the point of needing to be moved to bigger pots or split into smaller groups of plants, and Duke had put off doing either in anticipation of this day.

            She also brings lunch with her, which is a pleasant surprise for everyone, and a good excuse for a break. Nathan breaks out the hose rather than have everyone tromp inside to wash up, and Duke knows it’s coming by the way Nathan grins but he still yelps when Nathan takes a potshot at him with the hose, thumb partway over the opening to increase the pressure.

            “That was low,” Duke tells him, holding his arms away from his chest, but he’s smiling so the words don’t hold much weight. He regrets them as soon as he sees Nathan’s answering grin. “Nathan, don’t you-”

            He manages to turn to the side just enough to avoid getting a full dose of water to the crotch, though he is still soaking wet now. He gets no sympathy or help from Audrey, who is too busy cracking up to interfere. Nathan nearly turns the hose on her next, but she holds up both hands and tells him she’ll make him sleep at the Gull for a week if he does, so he doesn’t.

            They mostly sprawl out on the ground, basking in the midday sunlight and snacking on sandwiches and hand-cut, freshly-baked chips and extra pickles Tracey packed because all three of them used to ask for them. Audrey and Nathan trade each other half their sandwiches and Audrey eats lying on her back with her head in Nathan’s lap.

            Duke sits beside Aaron on the edge of one of the raised beds and pulls the crusts off of his grilled cheese sandwich and gives the rest to him in little pieces. He catches both Audrey and Nathan watching him fondly, and for once in his life, Duke actually blushes.

            “You’re good with him,” Audrey tells him warmly as they’re carrying the empty lunch containers inside to throw away. “You’ve always been good with kids. It’s sweet.”

            “Yeah,” Duke says, in a tone that says he doesn’t mean it. He can’t look Audrey in the eye, even when she touches her fingers to his arm to draw his attention. “He’s not old enough to hate me, yet.”

            “Duke,” Audrey says softly, grip tightening a little on his arm. “He won’t hate you. What happened wasn’t your fault, it was William’s.”

            “And Mara’s?” Duke asks, finally shifting his gaze to meet hers. Two very simple words that come with much more bite than intended. No matter what the truth is, no matter what she says, he knows she still feels responsible for the things Mara did.

            Audrey doesn’t look away or falter in the least. “And Mara’s,” she agrees firmly. “And Croatoan’s. They put us - all of us, this whole town - into a hellish position, and we did the best we could do with what we had, and what we had was usually a choice between something awful and something worse.”

            Though Duke’s chest feels tight, he nods acknowledgement of the sentiment. He knows all of those things, or at least he knows he  _ should _ know those things. When he is alone with Audrey or Nathan or both of them, he can almost believe it’s true, almost forget the blood on his hands and on theirs.

            It is less easy to forget out in the rest of the world. Sometimes he succeeds, he smiles and copes and moves forward like their one-town war had taught him to do, like he had been doing since he was eight years old. Other times the past takes him by surprise, sinking teeth into the soft spots he wants to be able to leave exposed, sneaking up on him out of the smile of a child whose father he killed.

            Audrey strokes a comforting hand down his arm, glances over his shoulder a half-second before Nathan’s arms wrap around him from behind. Nathan hooks his chin over Duke’s shoulder and rumbles: “D’you get lost?”

            “A little,” Duke admits, eyes still on Audrey’s. “But you found me.” He’s not sure which one he’s talking to, but he thinks maybe it’s both. They’ve been making it a habit.

            Nathan kisses the side of his neck and releases him. “Come on,” he says gently. “Tracey wants to get back and no one wants to split your herbs without you.”

            Duke follows him back outside and Audrey excuses herself to fetch the pots from the spare bedroom with the tomato and catnip plants. The others are outside waiting for him, Tracey talking to Gloria while Vicki watches over Aaron so he doesn’t dig up any of the plants. As soon as she sees him, Tracey points to the half-dozen or so pots and gives him a pointed look.

            It doesn’t take long to separate out the herbs and get them planted. Sage, thyme, rosemary, parsley, cilantro, and basil, plus dill for pickling. Gloria brings the celery plants over as they are finishing, and offers them up.

            “You know, celery isn’t an herb,” she tells him as he puts them in the ground one by one.

            He smiles sideways at her and continues patting the dirt around the baby plant’s base. “But I use it to flavor dishes,” he replies.

            She smiles, and doesn’t argue further. After all, the broccoli had been planted in with the potatoes and onions and carrots, and it wasn’t a root.

            Before Audrey can take the last tomato plant out of its pot, Vicki stops her. “Why was that one inside?” she asks curiously.

            “It’s… special,” Audrey explains, clearly not sure what to say. A couple of weeks ago, Duke had explained to them why he had it, in halting, nervous sentences, and although they understood, trying to communicate the importance of the plant to someone else seems to be a problem.

            Fortunately, although Vicki might not understand exactly why  _ this  _ plant mattered, she had lived through the Troubles with them. She recognizes the tone of voice Audrey used, and doesn’t bother pressing for more information. “You should hang it, then,” Vicki says, looking excited. “I saw some at the nursery, they were hung upside down in a tarp bag, and then it just… I guess it’s supposed to grow down instead of up!”

            Duke actually laughs aloud at the phrasing. “Well, I think we’ve all been grown up for long enough,” he cracks, grinning still. “Something here should get to grow down.”

            They don’t actually have tarp that Nathan is willing to sacrifice, so the plant goes back into the house for a little longer. Nathan takes the other pot, the one containing the catnip, around to the front, and plants it between the rose bush and the bleeding heart. Duke harvests a few leaves to take inside for Oskar later and leaves them on the porch to dry in the sun.

            When they come back, things seem to be wrapping up with their visitors. Tracey has already packed up and taken off when they weren’t looking and Audrey is standing in her goodbye stance, the one that says she’s already said goodbye and yet the other person is still talking. Nathan swoops in and picks up Aaron, who squeals in delight, drawing Vicki’s attention away from Audrey.

            “You know how to work his carseat?” Nathan asks, taking a step away so that Vicki has to follow. Duke smiles and exchanges a look with Audrey that communicates exactly how much they both love Nathan for moments like these.

            Gloria settles to a stop beside them and motions for Duke to give her a hug, which he does gladly. Audrey sneaks in for a hug as well, and Gloria smiles at both of them. “Proud of you three,” she tells them, giving Duke’s arm a little squeeze. “You keep doing what you’re doing here. And I expect some of these veggies to end up at my house, just so you know.”

            Duke grins as Audrey chuckles, and they both watch her go to join Nathan and Vicki in getting ready to go. Nathan rejoins them as the van trundles off down the drive toward the road, and leans against Audrey’s arm.

            “I think we’ve had a very successful day of gardening,” Audrey declares, leaning back.

            Nathan looks over his shoulder at the cement patio, where there is still a flat full of plants. “Not quite done yet, didn’t plant the climbing ones.”

            “Didn’t we?” Duke asks, following his line of sight to where the cucumbers, butternut squash, and zucchini are sitting. “Will they live if we just… leave them there overnight?”

            “They’ll be okay, but maybe we should water them,” Audrey suggests.

            “As long as Nathan’s not the one with the hose,” Duke says, still feeling a little damp from earlier.

            “The blueberries are still in the truck,” Nathan says, ignoring the comment as Audrey goes to fetch the hose. “And the mint, I think. Should put that in with the herbs.”

            “No way,” Audrey says, aiming the hose at him like a gun. “Even I know that mint will take over  _ everything _ wherever you plant it. Put it with the other mint plant.”

            Both boys look confused. “What other mint plant?” Duke asks first.

            “The catnip,” Audrey says. “It’s a mint. Cat mint.”

            Duke’s eyes light up at the memory of seeing the plants the first time in the kitchen with Nathan, and thinking they were some kind of mint. “If we plant mint by the cat mint, will they fight to see who takes over the garden?”

            “The mint will win,” Audrey says without even thinking about it. “The cats will take sides against the catnip.”

            Duke laughs and watches Audrey shower water over the remaining flat for a few seconds before smiling to Nathan and heading up front to fetch the remaining plants. Nathan follows without a word and together they bring Audrey everything else that needs water. Nathan makes her fill a bucket and takes it around the front to water the catnip plant now that it is in the ground.

            As Duke is winding the hose around its hanging arc, he realizes he can already feel a pleasant sort of ache in his muscles. Tomorrow will be worse, will probably require ibuprofen and complaining in equal measures, but Duke finds he doesn’t mind the thought. He won’t be alone and, though he will never admit it, being able to baby Audrey and Nathan, who will be in similar straits, will help him to feel better.

            Audrey disavows their notion of a shared shower, instead making them take turns soaking in long, hot baths to alleviate some of that soreness ahead of time. Though it leaves Duke and Audrey alone outside to finish cleaning up from the day’s work, Nathan takes his bath first so that he can start to make dinner while the other two are soaking.

            Dinner is nothing fancy - whole garlic cloves and chicken and steamed green beans from a freezer bag - but it is delicious and easy and they eat it with fingers instead of forks because it has been a long day. Duke attempts to share some of the chicken with Oskar, but she turns up her nose at the garlic.

            “It’s weird, to think we’ll be able to use our own garlic sometime,” Audrey says, picking over the bones of her chicken pieces looking for any stray scraps of meat she’d missed. “And our own green beans.”

            “Real mashed potatoes,” Duke says, shooting a grin at Nathan, who makes a face back. Nathan will absolutely still make potatoes out of a box, and it will drive Duke crazy every time.

            “Salads,” Nathan says. “Or chicken pot pie.”

            “Salsa,” Audrey adds. “Oh, but will it keep?”

            “We’ll figure it out,” Duke says with a shrug as he gets to his feet to collect empty plates.

            “Why the mint?” Nathan asks, as if he had just realized it existed and couldn’t fit it into the puzzle of future dishes. “What’s it for?”

            Duke lets Nathan scrape his plate off on the top of the stack and then shuffles it to the bottom. “We’re actually planting mint and peppermint,” Duke explains, because he’d been the one to grab both plants at the nursery.

            The statement comes out easily, which makes Duke’s heart speed up a little at the realization that he is  _ making plans. _ They have been making plans not just minutes or hours or even days in advance. The entire garden is a plan, a promise that they will  _ be here _ , together, months from now when the harvest begins, safe enough to have problems like how best to save salsa and what to do with different types of mint.

            “Duke?” Audrey says, and he’s not sure when she got so close, but she takes the plates from his shaking hands before he can drop them.

            He stares at her, breath short in his chest, eyes blurry, and perhaps for the very first time since the Troubles left for good, Duke understands that it is real.

            He has felt his heartbeat and theirs, looked at himself in the mirror, touched these two before him a thousand times. He has rebuilt his restaurant, raised his ship from the bottom of the sea, taken responsibility for a life that is not his own, and moved into the first solid home he’s ever had in his life.

            He has thought, a dozen times, a hundred times, that he is home, that they have made it through all of the terrible things in their lives, has told himself thousands of times that they are alive and free and  _ safe _ . That it is  _ over _ .

            And somehow being ready to explain the difference between mint and peppermint to Nathan is the thing that makes all of it  _ real _ .

            He sniffs and opens his mouth to say something, but all that comes out is a broken, stumbling puff of relieved laughter as he begins to cry. The alarm in Audrey’s eyes as she all but drops the dishes in order to hug him makes the entire moment that much more surreal. Nathan’s heat and weight behind him is the last straw.

            “Mojitos,” he mumbles into Audrey’s shoulder when he has collected himself enough to form words again.

            “What?” Nathan says flatly.

            Duke shifts until they give him the room to scrub at the wetness on his cheeks, the burning in his eyes. “The mint, you asked what the mint was for.” He lets out a soft chuckle, much more whole this time. “Its for mojitos. And th-the peppermint, I wanted to try to make peppermint oil, for hot cocoa next… next winter.”

            Light dawns in Audrey’s eyes at the context of  _ time _ . “Oh, Duke,” she breathes out, and draws him into another hug, this one much more tight. She doesn’t offer any other words, makes no other attempt to comfort him, and for that he is grateful.

            He wonders if it has become real for her, yet. If it has become real for Nathan, or if they are both still running on steam from their collective brush with fate.

            “I’m okay,” he murmurs to Audrey as she releases him.

            “You are,” she tells him, and he doesn’t know when it happened, but he knows with certainty that all of it became real for her already. She looks over his shoulder at Nathan and says: “We’re all okay,” and Duke knows then that it has yet to hit Nathan.

            He hopes he is there when it does; he hopes they are both there when it does. He wishes he or Nathan had been there when Audrey realized it, though he suspects she was happy they were not.

            For now, it is enough that he has them both safely here with him now, that he is able to be here with both of them in turn, and that they can make plans for cool summer cocktails and crisp fall vegetables and warm winter drinks together.


	20. Chapter 20

            Duke twitches the long, thin piece of grass in his fingers, dragging the fluffy tip through the rich blades of green all around him. Quick as a whip, Oskar chases after it, both paws trapping the end beneath them. The second she lifts a paw to look at what she captured, Duke swirls it away and up into the air, just to see her jump and twist to get it again.

            She lands with grace and then flops onto her side, tired. Duke reaches over and runs a hand over her smooth, silky coat, and she arches up into his touch with a loud purr rumbling to life. When Duke stops, when he rolls onto his back to stare up into the clear, blue sky, she walks over and climbs onto his chest to sit on him.

            A part of him is relieved to know that Audrey was right. They had begun taking Oskar outside with them when they tended to the garden or lounged around outside on nice days. Most of the time she stuck around watching whatever they were doing with the vague sort of interest he heard cats generally had. Sometimes, like today, she took an actual interest in interacting with them, playing with long blades of grass or chasing toes or batting at water droplets rolling off of freshly watered plants.

            On rare occasion, she would disappear. Duke had tried to follow her after the first time it happened, but she inevitably lost him in short order. They had all lingered around outside for a while after Duke returned alone, but by the time the sun had begun to set, they retreated to the indoors to make dinner and worry about her.

            However, Oskar did not disappoint. She had returned on the very cusp of dark, meowing loudly at the back door until they let her in. She had dirt on her nose and a smudge of something greasy on her tail but seemed otherwise no worse for wear. So far, she had come back every time, and every time they worried less.

            Today is one of Duke’s favorite kind of days, the kind where she is very intent on being close to him. He scritches at her ears with both hands, loving the adorable way she closes both her eyes and can’t decide which way to lean her head to make the most of the attention.

            He knows that he should be helping with  _ something _ the others are currently doing, but they’ve been home all morning and he has only just gotten off his opening shift at the Gull, after covering a late shift the night before, and he’s just  _ tired _ .

            So instead of helping, he just watches the lazy back and forth movement of the hose in Nathan’s hand, the nozzle sending a glittering shower of water over their growing vegetable garden. He is already on the third of the boxed gardens, and the previous two are full of glistening, bright-green plants and damp, black soil. So far, Duke hasn’t been the victim of anyway wayward spraying, though he suspects it is only because Oskar is acting as an unwitting shield.

            Across the yard, Audrey is scattering wildflower seeds in the landscaping beds they had spent the last two weeks digging out and filling with fresh dirt and mulch. Dwight had dropped by with Lizzie, who insisted on bringing them not one or two or even three boxes of wildflower seeds, but  _ seven _ . Seven  _ boxes _ of wildflower seeds, enough, Duke assumed, to plant several fields worth of wildflowers.

            Of course, when he asked  _ why _ , he got a ten minute lecture about the importance of bees to the ecosystem and the economy and a lot of other things that someone barely in double-digits should not even know yet. The looks he'd traded with Dwight over her head told him that Dwight didn’t know why she was on this kick either, and suggested that they probably had just as many boxes to plant at their own home.

            Audrey, the dirty traitor, had taken all of the boxes away from him with a  _ Yeah, Duke! Don’t you know about the bees? _ even though she didn’t know any more about it than he did. Nathan couldn’t stop laughing, and had to remove himself from the situation before he offended Lizzie.

            Despite all of it, they had begun work on digging out garden beds the very next day in order to plant the flowers, and Audrey is finally on the last box of seeds. She has marked out sections, one for each box, so they can tell which flowers grow from which mixes to mark their favorites.

            Duke is pretty sure she is planting them mostly because it is easier to let the landscaping grow wild with hardy native flowers than it is to buy shrubs or annuals and try to maintain them. And he finds that he is perfectly okay with that; they have so far had their hands full with the rest of their lives.

            Oskar’s claws prick at his skin through his shirt, and Duke taps her paws to let her know she is enjoying their petting session a little too hard. She apologizes by lying down on his chest, her purr rumbling in his lungs, and he cannot help but smile as he stares up into the sky and listens to the scatter of seeds and the patter of water and the long, loud  drone of cicadas in the distance signaling that winter has gone and summer is well on its way.

            This, he thinks. This right here is what life should be all about.


	21. Chapter 21

            By the time Beattie is done unloading the car, their front room is full of child gear. A tub of kitchenware with plastic plates and childproof cups and cutlery, sleeping bags, stuffed animals, a veritable library of kidsafe DVDs… Audrey is still across the room intently listening to Beattie’s instructions while Nathan is on his knees on the floor with the two almost-four-year-old boys and Oskar, despite her typically forward nature, is nowhere to be found.

            Duke sort of wishes he could also be nowhere to be found, but he hadn’t said  _ no _ when Nathan had asked if they would be all right with babysitting Benny and Alex over Memorial Day weekend, so he can’t back out now.

            “They’re kids, not bombs,” Nathan teases from the floor and when Duke looks over he finds Nathan staring at him fondly. “You can relax.”

            “I am relaxed,” Duke lies, prying his fingers off of the carton in his hands. Some kind of snack, he registers as he sets it on the coffee table. He throws a glance to Audrey, who is still smiling and nodding at Beattie, and Duke thinks she could probably use rescuing at this point, though he isn’t ready to do so himself.

            “It’s only for a couple of days,” Nathan reassures him as one of the kids climbs into his lap with a toy.

            “It’s not that, it…” Duke trails off, not sure he knows where he is going with the thought.

            He isn’t worried about watching the kids; whether or not the other two believe it, he has babysat in the past, and has no problem entertaining small children for short stretches. It just feels…  _ different _ , in his own space. He has watched children at their own houses, has entertained children in public places, but these two are tumbling around in  _ his  _ home and some part of him desperately wants to tell him that this is exactly what he wants.

            Which is equal parts  _ terrifying _ and  _ good _ .

            Duke had never considered himself a children kind of guy. He has never been anywhere stable enough to take care of a child- either in location of emotion. His life had, for a long time, consisted of stealing and gambling and smuggling and running from all of the problems that threatened to destroy him, and when he had finally turned to face them all,  _ they had _ . He had spent nearly two years being torn apart by the Troubles and everything that had come along with them, and at the very end, they had destroyed him, utterly.

            But he remembers the photo of his daughter. He remembers the sudden, sharp pang of  _ want _ and  _ loss _ that he had felt knowing that he had helped bring a life into this world and literally  _ could not _ personally ensure her well being without dying. He remembers the way  _ you can  _ **_never_ ** _ see her _ had felt like  _ you can  _ **_never_ ** _ have this _ .

            He remembers that the Troubles are gone, now, and that  _ never _ has become  _ maybe _ , that he and Audrey and Nathan have talked about it a dozen times since that half-panicked conversation in the spare bedroom. He remembers that every time one of them mentions possibly creating a whole new life together, it seems a little more possible, a little more  _ real _ .

            Every time they talk about it like they mean it, the past seems a little farther away, the present a little more safe, and the future a little bit brighter.

            He shakes his head, eyes finding Nathan’s. “They were smaller last time I saw them,” he says, instead of any kind of real explanation.

            “Kids do that,” Nathan says, letting him off the hook.

            There is some kind of commotion as Beattie apparently realizes the time, and she sweeps over to give her boys goodbye hugs. “Behave yourselves,” she tells them, even though they are probably still too young to follow that direction for more than an hour. “I’ll be back Sunday.”

            Nathan scoops up Benny as he starts to follow his mom out, and Duke finds himself automatically picking up Alex, who squirms around unhappily for a moment. Audrey murmurs reassurances to Beattie as she follows her to the front door, and then the door is closing and the  _ crying _ begins. Duke had forgotten just how  _ loud _ children can be, but the shrieking banshee in his arms reminds him rather poignantly.

            “Oh my god,” Audrey says, loud enough to be heard over the unhappy duet as she covered her ears. “How do you turn them off?”

            “I think you just have to wait,” Duke says, glancing at Nathan for confirmation. Nathan grimaces. Apparently children are not  _ always _ charming, even for him, and Duke finds himself smiling at that, a little relieved.

            It doesn’t take as long as Duke expects for the boys to stop crying and get distracted with something else. Audrey abandons them in the front room to start taking things up to the spare bedroom, which is no longer full of plants. They had child-proofed the room, putting little plastic plugs into the outlets and installing gadgets on the dresser drawers so they couldn’t be opened by small, curious humans unaided.

            When she returns, Nathan reluctantly removes himself from a game of Duplo Legos to go start dinner. Duke resigns himself to mac and cheese with hot dogs cut up into it, and slides into Nathan’s place on the building team. He’s not sure what they are constructing, but it looks like just a long line of connected blocks.

            “It’s gonna be interesting,” Audrey says softly. Benny is on her lap now, a book made of cloth in his hands, little stubby fingers tracking around the edges of the pages to feel the textures. Duke doesn’t think they are old enough to actually read anything on their own.

            “Watching them?” Duke asks, looking up to meet her eyes.

            “Having them here for more than a couple hours.” She gives a little shrug, like she is trying to be nonchalant, but Duke can hear the question in her tone even if he isn’t sure what the question  _ is _ .

            “It’ll be more like having real kids?” he guesses, because that’s certainly  _ his  _ concern.

            “They’re real kids,” Audrey teases and Duke rolls his eyes just a little. “Okay, yes,” she admits, dropping her gaze. “Like having our own… for a little while.”

            Duke can hear every lost minute with James in those last few words, feels the acute loss of Jean echo back. Their losses have left them  _ wanting _ and, with ever-increasing frequency, they have all dragged their desires for having children of their own into the light. 

            “Yeah,” he agrees, though it sounds tight even to him.

            Audrey doesn’t push the issue, and Duke lets it drop until Nathan comes in with bowls for the kids. They set up camp on the coffee table mostly because it’s easier than making them sit still at the kitchen table, and Nathan stays to watch the boys while Audrey and Duke fetch bowls for themselves.

            Dinner passes without much fuss, which is kind of a relief. Benny and Alex ask for ice cream for dessert, and Audrey talks right over Nathan saying yes to tell the boys maybe if they are good for their baths. Audrey calls Not-It on bathing small children, and begins to clear dishes.

            After a few minutes in the bathroom, Oskar joins them to supervise the bath. She sits regally on the bathroom sink and peers over Nathan’s shoulder at the tiny, loud humans, and doesn’t seem inclined to join them like she still does Nathan and sometimes Duke or Audrey. She beats a hasty retreat when the boys come shooting out of the tub mostly clean and ready to give her sopping wet hugs.

            They manage to mostly get both kids wrapped in towels and Nathan herds them out of the bathroom. Duke stays behind to clean up and Audrey joins him, shutting the door behind herself. He nearly drops the bath toys in his arms when she backs him up to the counter, has to tip them into the sink so he can kiss her properly.

            “You okay?” he asks softly, head bowed to rest their foreheads together. She nods, moving him with her, and pries his loose grip from her jawline, tracks his hands down over her breasts, her belly, until his fingertips are at the hem of her shirt.

            “Just going to take a shower,” she says, smile curving the words. “Thought you might like to help me get ready.”

            Duke’s eyes shutter closed and he drags in a breath. “More than anything,” he agrees, fingers slipping up under her shirt to push it slowly up and off of her. It doesn’t take long to undress her, though he very reluctantly leaves her in the bathroom alone to go see if Nathan needs help.

            As it turns out, he does not. Duke finds Nathan with a lap full of snuggling children, a picturebook held open between them as he reads aloud. He glances up when Duke appears in the doorway, and answers Duke’s soft smile with one of his own, voice not faltering in the least.

            Instead of interrupting to join them, Duke just stands in the doorway, eyes tracing over the scene, over the relaxed lines of Nathan’s body, the shapes of his lips as he reads, how easy two little forms fit against his sides. Duke memorizes the warm feeling in his chest, the soft tug of longing in his gut to see children - even ones that are not their own - fitting so easily, so  _ safely _ , into their lives.

            He catalogs all of these things one by one, letting them settle into his heart, into his bones, so that after the book is finished and the kids have been zipped into their sleeping bags and the door is snugly shut, he will remember them. So that when he follows Nathan to their bedroom and finds Audrey already under the covers, he can share it with her in soft murmurs and watch the blush that feathers over Nathan’s cheeks.

            “I reckon he wants one of his very own,” Audrey teases softly.

            “I do,” Nathan tells her, quiet and sure, and in just two words he sobers them all. “I think we could do it.”

            “You think we’re ready?” Duke asks, laying out the words they’ve all avoided saying. “A kid would change… everything.”

            There is weight behind those words that drags at their pasts. Nathan and Audrey, of all people in the world, are acutely aware of exactly how much a child can change everything. Theirs certainly had.

            “Everything’s already changed,” Audrey says, sitting up a little straighter against her pillows. “Haven’s changed. We’ve changed. It hasn’t all been bad, and it’s getting better. And I-” She hesitates, looking between them both, taking their measure before she pushes her hair back behind her ears and makes her face make a smile. “I don’t think anyone’s ever  _ ready _ to be a parent, but I think it’s something we all want, and I think we’d be good at it. Or learn how to be.”

            Duke smiles, trading a quick glance with Nathan to ask all of the questions stirred up by the suggestion. He sees exactly what he expects to see; Nathan is ready for this, desperately excited about the prospect, and nervous to think this is something they are seriously discussing as an actual plan.

            “Yeah,” Duke says, looking back at Audrey. “You’re right.”

            Nathan pulls her gently into a kiss instead of answering, and Duke’s not sure who gives the first relieved puff of laughter, but it feels good to join them, to feel the tension of the uncertain moment ease as they settle down to sleep.

            “I’ll call the doctor in the morning,” Audrey says as she curls into Nathan’s side, relaxing back against Duke. “Stop my prescription and we’ll just… see what happens, okay?”

            “I have a pretty good idea what will happen,” Duke says slyly, and knows well enough to dodge Audrey’s elbow.

            He laughs and wraps an arm around her middle, shifting to fit himself all along the contour of her back, closes his eyes. As he falls asleep curled up with them, he knows that even though they are about to head into uncharted territory, they will figure it out one step at a time the same way they always have: together.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long wait, but this one's considerably longer than the rest of the chapters. I hope that you enjoy it! Also, the "chapter" after this is "The Fourth Gull" - the first work of this series. It's kind of a circle.

* * *

 

 

 

            Duke stands in the middle of the galley, pointing at cabinets and muttering lists under his breath as he takes stock of everything he has put in its place in the last three days. There are dry goods and cold goods and drinks and snacks and treats. He has stocked first aid supplies and maps and movies and extra bedding and clean clothes and rope. Duke doesn’t think that they will need rope, but he knows that if he doesn’t pack it, they absolutely will.

            In fact, he thinks that they only missing elements are his partners, who are still at the station making sure that their two-week sojourn down the coast will not adversely affect the town.

            It won’t, Duke thinks, and the beauty of that knowledge, the way it settles in under his skin, is the reason he hasn’t gone to fetch them yet. It’s been over a year now since the Troubles disappeared, but every reminder of how normal this town is and how non-urgent their lives have become is still a pleasant surprise.

            Yet no matter how normal the town is, no matter that they have planted roots here, Duke knows that - for him at least - recovery means _leaving_ . Not forever, not even for a long time, but just knowing that they _can_ , that the town will not fall apart, no one will suffer from their absence, that fate will not drag them back kicking and screaming… Duke needs that, the same way he needed it years ago.

            He needs to leave so that he can _choose_ to come back.

            The sound of boots on the deck call his attention, and he moves to head outside. Dwight meets him at the door with a smile that has finally lost any trace of hostility. “Was worried you fell in,” Dwight says, shifting to let Duke past.

            “I fell into something,” Duke returns with a smile that gives Dwight at least six reasons to roll his eyes. “Where’s the kid?”

            “Truck,” Dwight says, throwing a thumb over his shoulder to the big, black truck idling in the parking lot. “She’s about to pop outta her skin with excitement.”

            Duke gives him a slightly confused look as they walk the length of the _Rouge_ to the best place to jump back to the dock. However, Dwight just shrugs and lets him lead them to the vehicle, where Lizzie rolls down her window and hangs out of it on her elbows.

            “Thought you fell in!” she exclaims with a wide grin, and Duke chokes a little on his laughter- she is certainly her father’s daughter. “We’ve been waiting _forever_.”

            “You’ve been waiting an hour,” Duke tells her as he pulls open the passenger-side door and climbs in. Dwight rounds the truck’s nose and joins them.

            “You told us _two weeks_ ago,” Lizzie tells him, sitting back and buckling her seatbelt. “That’s forever.”

            “Ah,” Duke says, nodding sagely. “You’re absolutely correct. I should procrastinate such arrangements in the future.”

            Dwight sighs, but puts the truck in gear and takes them all the way back to the house. Duke lets them in and almost instantly Oskar weaves herself around their feet. Lizzie scoops her up and rubs faces with her, and then flips her onto her back to carry like a baby. Oskar tucks her paws to her chest and presses her cheek into Lizzie’s fingers as they walk.

            “Her food is in the kitchen, by her food bowl. She gets half a cup of kibble in the morning and you can give her a little bit of wet food at night if you want to, but you don’t have to,” he explains, pointing to the objects in question. “There are cans and plates and lids on the counter.”

            Lizzie looks at both and then sets Oskar down. “Litterbox?”

            “It’s by the back door, and I moved the fresh litter nearby,” Duke tells her, smiling. Part of the reason Dwight agreed to letting her cat-sit was because she wants a free-range pet of her own. “It needs to be scooped at least once a week.”

            “She’s going to do it twice a week,” Dwight says firmly.

            Duke trades a little eyeroll with Lizzie, but he is secretly glad that Dwight insists on good behavior and responsibility. Though he will probably never admit it aloud, he has on more than one occasion this past year found himself wishing that his father had been more like Dwight. Wishing that Simon had been the kind of guy that would have kept Duke out of trouble rather than sending him blindly into it.

            He _definitely_ won’t be admitting that Dwight is the kind of father Duke hopes to _be_ , someday.

            Clearing his throat, Duke moves them to the front room. Audrey had collected all of Oskar’s toys and piled them onto the couch the night before, but already they are starting to migrate. “She loves to play with most of these,” Duke tells Lizzie, picking up the stick-and-string toy. Oskar materializes to pounce on the feathers at the end of the string when Duke twitches them. “She’ll play until she’s exhausted, so just keep an eye on her.”

            “Can she go outside?” Lizzie asks, picking up a little yarn mouse and tossing it for Oskar to chase.

            “She _can_ , but she doesn’t really… like to,” Duke says carefully. “She likes to be out when there are people around. But, since this is our first trip away, I think we’d prefer to keep her indoors until we get back.”

            “Okay,” Lizzie says, giving a little shrug and smiling up at him brightly. “Does she have treats? Can I give her one?”

            “You may,” Duke says, crossing back to the kitchen. He pulls two bottles and three bags of different treats out of the cupboard over the stove, where she cannot get into them, and offers the lot of the to Lizzie to choose from. “We have to keep them up high in a cabinet because she will chew through them and she’s a little velociraptor about opening doors…”

            Lizzie giggles and picks one of the plastic bottles of treats, popping the lid and shaking a couple into her hand. Oskar is already waiting with whiskers perked forward by the time Lizzie crouches to give her one. Duke smiles and then looks up at Dwight, brows rising a little in question. Dwight nods confirmation that he’s gotten all the information, and Duke relaxes a little.

            It’s going to be _fine_ , he tells himself. It’s only two weeks.

  


* * *

  


            They set off in the evening, when the sun turns Haven into little more than a dark silhouette outlined in all the reds and oranges and golds of a warm sunset palette. Audrey and Nathan stand at the rear of the boat, hands on the railing and wind in their hair to watch their home disappear into the distance. Duke doesn’t look back. At least, he doesn’t look back more than once.

            When the coast disappears behind them, Duke shuts off the engine and locks up the wheel to let them drift. Audrey’s been standing in the doorway for at least ten minutes and as Duke hasn’t seen Nathan, he assumes correctly that he has found the food and started dinner. He lets Audrey lead him below deck but as soon as the food hits plates, he makes them join him out under the stars on open water.

            “I don’t think I’ve ever seen them this bright,” Audrey says softly, neck craned to peer up into the white-spotted void.

            Both Nathan and Duke look up, and Nathan smiles broadly, a far cry from the quiet, tight smiles of the past. “I remember coming out here a few times, on my dad’s boat,” he says, the same sort of soft as Audrey, as if they both think loud voices might scare away the stars. He waves his fork in a wide arc, pointing skyward. “See that white dusty looking line?”

            Audrey squints and follows the line of his silverware. “Yes,” she says.

            “That’s the Milky Way, the arms of our galaxy,” Nathan tells her, obviously very proud of his knowledge.

            “Nerd,” Duke says softly, popping a french fry into his mouth. Nathan makes a face at him, but chases it with a smile that says he’s not actually offended. If Nathan hadn’t said it, Duke would have, and they both know it.

            They eat the rest of their meal in the kind of silence where no words are needed, until Duke gets up to gather dishes and bring back drinks to help everyone unwind toward their first Real Day Away. Audrey’s hands are steady when she takes the bottle from him, and Nathan doesn’t even open his eyes, just holds out his hand when he hears Duke approaching and closes his fingers the moment he feels cold glass and that in itself is a small miracle Duke can appreciate.

            Duke settles back into his own chair, takes a long, slow breath, and lets it out easy, ready to enjoy their first maritime adventure together.

  


* * *

  


            They meander between the coast and open water on the way to their destination. They spend most of the travel time doing little more than lounging around in less-than-full attire, soaking up the full midsummer sun and talking about whatever pops into their heads. They grab a few ports along the route, spending time in various coastal towns just long enough to see the sights and eat food they didn’t have to make for themselves.

            On the second day, after a phone call, they make a special stop in Boston to visit Audrey and Brad, who happily meet them at the docks and insist on taking them to lunch. She hugs Audrey, and then Nathan, and then Duke, and Duke isn’t sure what to make of that. He still feels responsible for taking her to Kick ‘em Jenny Neck and getting her memory wiped, even though there was no way he could have known and she practically threatened him to take her.

            But she doesn’t seem to hold it against him, so he hugs her too and tells her he’s happy she is okay, and if it comes out more relieved than he intended, he doesn’t take it back. Brad shakes his hand, and Nathan’s, and Audrey’s, and thanks them again, quietly, for getting his Audrey home safely.

            They take a table together and the Audreys spend the entire lunch talking rapid-fire back and forth, sometimes so fast Duke stops paying attention to the words and just smiles softly at how excited they are to see one another again. They all stay longer than intended, and lunch turns into an adventure in exploring Boston, which leads directly to settling in at a bar to continue telling tales.

            By the end of the night, they have ordered a lot of drinks, perhaps a few too many drinks as they get into the quieter, more hurtful moments of the past year and a half. The Troubles, the Shroud, Mara, Croatoan, the blood on their hands and the death that followed on their heels like a faithful hound through all of it.

            Duke joins in on getting quietly, somberly drunk with them, and Nathan doesn’t bother pretending he will be a designated driver for their rental car. While he’s calling a cab, Duke books a hotel room, because he’s been drunk enough times on his ship to know that Audrey’s first time won’t be pleasant and he doesn’t want to add insult to injury.

            Brad has work in the morning, but Audrey Prime follows them back to their hotel for the night. The boys take one of the beds, and the Audreys take the other, and Duke stays up later than he probably should to keep an eye on them where they lay curled up face to face talking in low, slurry tones until they are more asleep than awake.

            He doesn’t remember falling asleep, and startles awake again before the others, heart thumping wildly for a moment at the unfamiliar surroundings. But he is safe, with Nathan out cold beside him, and he takes comfort in being able to reach out and touch him. Under his careful fingers, Nathan stirs, cracking one eye open and mumbling a grouchy good morning. Hangovers hurt more when one can feel them.

            Duke leaves the room before either Audrey is awake, heading downstairs and out to the closest drugstore to pick up appropriate quantities of water, ibuprofen, and Tylenol for everyone’s needs and preferences. By the time he gets back, Nathan has managed to drag himself into the shower and the Audreys are burrowed deep under all of the covers from both beds, safely away from the evil life-giving sun.

            He manages to coax a bottle of water into each of them in turn, and enough painkillers to at least muffle the hangovers before they head down to grab breakfast from the hotel’s breakfast bar. Audrey picks the sweetest muffin she can find and curls up with her feet on the chair she’s sitting in, and Audrey Prime is only slightly better with a different type of muffin.

            While Duke checks them out of the hotel, Nathan calls a cab to go fetch their rental car and Audrey Prime follows them to the docks to say farewell before taking their rental car home. Audrey Absolutely Does Not Cry and neither boy calls her on it as they climb aboard the _Rouge_ to set sail again.

            “We’ll be back,” Duke tells her softly as she leans against him, watching Boston’s harbor disappear behind them.

            “Say it again,” Audrey says, looking sidelong at him with the kind of smile that adds hope to the world.

            He leans to kiss the top of her head. There is no Barn looming a deadline for existence over their heads, no more Troubles scratching at their doors, no more threats from other worlds calling them to their fates.

            “We’ll be back,” he promises earnestly, and he knows that it is true.

  


* * *

  


            They port hop down the coast after Boston, stopping at least once in every state that touches the ocean. They spend a night in Atlantic City, walking down the boardwalk hand in hand and grabbing their dinner at a small, locally-owned restaurant where Duke knows the owners.

            Audrey convinces them to visit a casino after dinner, and they all have a little too much to drink before calling it a night. Somehow they manage to hail a cab, though this is mostly by virtue of Nathan standing in the middle of the street with both hands raised and yelling that everything is okay, he is a cop. Duke cannot stop laughing and Audrey is in similar straits as she shoves Nathan into the backseat and pulls Duke in after her.

            They can’t decide which dock the _Rouge_ is at, so they have their driver drop them off at the first one they see and spend an hour relishing the salty-soft breeze as it rolls in off the water. Eventually they manage to find the correct dock, the one with their ship rocking gently in the midnight tide, and they all make it aboard without falling into the water.

            As soon as they have showered, far more quickly and less coordinated than usual, Nathan climbs onto the bed and practically falls asleep before he can even lie down properly. Duke nearly joins him, but hesitates when he sees Audrey standing at the edge of the room, looking torn.

            “We don’t have to sleep yet,” he offers, brushing a hand down her arm as he moves closer. She flinches, and his heart twists up in his chest. “Audrey.”

            Her name draws her attention to him and he feels small under the weight of this kind of stare. This time when he touches her face, ghosting just the tips of his fingers over her cheeks and down her jaw, her eyes slide shut and she presses into it with a sigh.

            “I’m okay,” she murmurs against his palm, and he leans to kiss her forehead.

            “You are,” he agrees, and when she pulls away to head for the deck, he follows. She plucks two glass bottles from the fridge on the way and walks backward long enough to push one into his hands.

            They spend the last few hours of starlight laid back in two of the deck chairs, letting the great expanse of the void settle into their bones, chill and silent. Audrey picks at the label on her beer and hasn’t made it halfway through before she sets it in her lap. Duke doesn’t lift his head, just rolls it to the side to look at her and waits.

            “I dream… about it. Sometimes,” she says, halting, pained. “The… the Troubles, and the other personalities. William and Mara and Charlotte and Croatoan... the-” Her voice cracks and she swallows hard. “The Barn.”

            Duke takes in the tension in her shoulders, the set of her jaw, the raw, haunted emptiness in her blue eyes. He watches her track the stars, traversing the darkness from light to light with every flick of her eyes. He doesn’t have to ask to know that the moonlight on her skin is keeping her steady.

            He knows, without asking, that the white light of the moon and the stars reminds her of the Barn.

            And he knows, with a certainty beyond the scope of words, that as much as she loathes the feeling… she misses it. He knows more about missing something that hurts than he cares to admit.

            “What _happened_ to you…? In the Barn,” Duke asks, soft, barely giving breath to the words lest they cause Audrey to be spirited away to that ever-white prison once more.

            Audrey lays her head against the back of her chair, eyes tracking back down to the dawn bruising the horizon, and she doesn’t answer. Her fingers play absently with the neck of her beer bottle, and Duke thinks maybe there isn’t an answer to give. Maybe she doesn’t know, maybe she doesn’t want to remember, or maybe she’s afraid that she does.

            Maybe it’s better left unsaid.

            “It…” Audrey false starts, clears her throat and pointedly does not meet his gaze still. “It… damaged me.” Her eyes cling to the dying light of the stars as they begin to twinkle out of view. She gives a little shake of her head and drags her attention back to Earth, back to Duke. “It made me whole.”

            Duke tries to find some kind of response, something that will tell her he knows something about becoming oneself through the catastrophe of life, but nothing quite fits. Instead he waits until she finds more words in the contents of her bottle.

            “It ripped out all the aether,” she says, like it still hurts, like she can feel it happening even now. “Croatoan put it there to heal Mara, but… mortality’s not an illness to be cured.”

            His heart skips at least three beats, breath catching in his chest as his hand tightens on his own bottle. “It made you mortal.”

            She doesn’t answer right away and he’s not sure it matters if she ever will- he wasn’t asking, can see the truth of it scrawled in every part of her expression. She is mortal, had been made mortal when the armory Barn tore her apart and spat her back into their world. It had taken her a year’s time, a few hundred miles, and too much alcohol to admit to it.

            He sets his beer on the deck and extends his hand across the space between them, palm up. She slides hers into his, threading their fingers, and there’s a certain sense of wonder newly accompanying her drink-warm skin.

            Mortal.

            It’s too small a word for Audrey Parker, too big a concept to apply to how small she looks under the endless blanket of the clear dawn sky.

            “How’s it feel?” he murmurs, flexing his fingers against hers.

            She rolls her head to the side to look at him, searches his face for something he can’t guess, and a smile lights upon her lips. It’s the kind of smile that scares him, that reminds him of every brush with death, every loss, every sacrifice any of them have ever made. It reminds him that even the onset of mortality in an immortal pales in comparison to what they have survived. It is the last price paid.

            She folds her legs up, heels bracing on the very edge of her seat, making her smaller, and she pulls her hand from his to scrub at one eye, doing a poor job of hiding her sniffle by clearing her throat.

            “I was only supposed to have a few months,” she says quietly, voice thick. “I was supposed to come to Haven and fight the Troubles and then go into the Barn and stop existing. And then- and then that didn’t happen, and I find out I’m- that I wasn’t me, and then I _was_ me, and I find out I’m supposed to be immortal, except that I still had to go away forever.” She pauses, folds her arms over her knees and rubs her cheek over the back of one hand. “And then I did, _again_ , and it-”

            She stops then, trails off and stares at the middle distance, at something he can’t see, and he doesn’t say a word until she sniffles in another breath and lifts her head. This time her smile is something else, something rueful but not injured.

            “It changed me. The word _immortal_ doesn’t mean much if you’ve just got to go away from everything you love forever anyway. You wanna know how it feels?” she says softly, her smile edging the words. “It feels like _time_ . It feels like 40 hours a week. It feels like lazy Sunday mornings and late Wednesday nights. It feels like planting a garden and planning a harvest. It feels like a chance to grow old with the two men I love. It feels _nice_ , Duke. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

            His smile echoes hers as he falls in love with her all over again. There is, he thinks, a very good reason that Audrey Parker was able to survive saving the world.

  


* * *

 

 

            After Atlantic City, it takes them four more days of meandering the coastline to make their destination. It’s a small port, looks like it hasn’t seen much use beyond the little fishing skiffs and rowboats moored at the teeth of its docks. Despite its size, there are people everywhere, and beyond the shops scattered along the shoreline, beyond the smattering of houses, there is a whirl of smoke curling toward the sky and the sound of music accompanies the scent of cooking food.

            They drop anchor off shore in the low-tide shallows alongside dozens of other craft, and it does not take long for a small boat to come out to meet them. Duke introduces Gail, the woman behind the wheel, and she welcomes them carefully aboard the skiff to take them in to shore.

            “This many people celebrate the summer solstice?” Audrey asks Gail in a hushed tone when they reach the only open dock.

            Gail’s laugh is big and booming, and she tosses the gangplank down to the dock with a resounding clatter before she answers. “Half of ‘em don’t even know what a solstice is, Darling, but there’s music and good food and better drink and the biggest bonfire the county will let burn. Folks’ll take any reason’a throw a party ‘round here.”

            Audrey gives Nathan and Duke a look vacant of disapproval, the sort of brow-raising, quirked-smile type of look that says maybe Haven could learn a lesson from the south. Nathan gives her a slightly horrified look in return as Duke begins to laugh and herds them off the boat with a heartfelt thanks to Gail.

            The party is not quite in full swing, as it is only midday, but there is indeed live music and an already-roaring bonfire. The scent of a hundred different food items mingled together wreathes around them in that particular way that only happens at small-town festivals and really excellent carnivals. When Duke suggests they choose a location to grab lunch, they end up having to part ways to get in separate lines because they can’t agree… and they don’t have to.

            They manage to reconvene to eat, and Nathan even finds them a corner of empty table to sit down at so they don’t have to juggle food and drink. Whatever Audrey is eating, Duke doesn’t recognize it past the amount of frying that has been done to it, and Nathan somehow managed to find some kind of tortilla-wrapped vegetables that make Duke regret his culinary decisions. It looks _delicious_.

            By the time they finish eating, the area is crowded and getting louder at the same rate as the music. Duke clears their trash and they stand around debating what to do before Nathan picks a direction at random and starts walking toward a row of tables and small booths that appear to be selling things.

            It is a sound decision, one which takes them in a meandering pattern toward the bonfire. The heat of summer doesn’t bear down as much as it could, not the same wet way it does in their hometown, and the breeze comes in off the coast instead of from inland, bringing the cool of the ocean with it. Everyone around them looks happy, relaxed, eating and drinking and chattering excitedly, stopping to pick up trinkets along the way as they wait for night to fall on the longest day of the year.

            Duke finds a booth that is selling pretty, hand-decorated notecards upon which folks can write wishes to send into the bonfire at dusk, the equivalent of tossing coins into a wishing well. They each scrawl a wish and deposit their card into the barrel of other wishes. Duke isn’t sure he believes in wishes coming true, but when Nathan closes the barrel lid and looks to him with a soft, happy smile, and Audrey hooks her arm through his to walk closer, he thinks maybe he should start.

            It does not take long after that for Audrey to find the most magical booth at the festival, the one selling powder to make fire change colors. She buys them each a couple of packets of the stuff, for later, and listens intently to the lady behind the booth as she explains that they should simply toss the entire package in, rather than trying to empty it into the fire. Duke thinks that should probably go without saying, until he watches another customer start to tear open one of the packets and have to be rescued by the vendor.

            At the outer edge around the bonfire, Nathan stops at a booth selling desserts, and picks up individually packaged s’mores. There are several smaller firepits around the main fire, surrounded by clusters of folks roasting their own hotdogs or making campfire pies or s’mores together, away from the truly impressive heat of the bonfire.

            They pick a spot nearby to roast their marshmallows and Duke is disgusted to see that Nathan still sets his on fire and watches it burn to a crisp before letting it touch his graham crackers and chocolate. Audrey eats one of hers raw while roasting the other, watches Duke cook his to a perfect golden-brown over a small pile of coals at the edge of the flames. They all get sticky and sweet as they eat, and it might be indecent, the way Audrey licks her fingers clean afterward, but no one stops her.

            After that, they sidle up to the fire for the wish burning ceremony. Audrey fishes the flame powders out of their bag and they take turns tossing them in and watching the brilliant colors bloom. They agree the purple is the prettiest, although Nathan declares he’d have green fire all the time if he could.

            Just as they toss the last packet in, the speakers crackle and an announcement states that all those who wish to see the casting of solstice wishes should come to the bonfire. They don’t need to move to have a good view as one of the festival workers approaches the bonfire with the small plastic barrel of wishes in his arms.

            “Is he just going to toss the whole thing in?” Audrey asks, glancing briefly to Duke and then back again.

            “Kind of,” Duke says, smiling. He remembers the first time he watched them do this, he’d thought the same thing, but the plastic wouldn’t burn, it would just melt. “It’s pretty cool, someone in town built that thing just for this.”

            They watch as the wish courier sets the barrel on the ground beside the fire, and begins to pull it apart. Or at least, it looks that way until it becomes evident that it is actually extending into a long tube. The man pulls the top off and tips it so that all of the wish cards begin to pour into the fire.

            Where they hit, the flames begin to change, lighting up in all the colors of the rainbow, dusted with the same chemicals as the dust they’d been playing with only moments prior. Audrey makes a noise of delight, and the smile on Nathan’s face is worth every second of the travel time to get here.

            Afterward, as the daylight fades, replaced by the flicker and shift of firelight, the music softens and the mood begins to change to something slightly more surreal. The children that had been so present for the majority of the festival disappear from the thinning crowd and the tone of conversation turns to silk and honey instead of discordent chatter. All around them the booths are packing up, save for a few.

            “What’s going on?” Audrey hisses, stepping closer, and Duke just smiles and nudges at her shoulder.

            “Nothing is wrong,” he assures her, touching Nathan’s arm to drawn his attention. “No kids allowed after ten.”

            “Wonder why,” Nathan says, motioning with his chin toward a nearby couple with seemingly no regard for their surrounding audience. Duke can practically feel the Respectable Cop in Nathan and Audrey both bristling at the very public display of near indecency. He grins.

            “I take it sex by the fire is off-limits, then?” he asks impishly, just to see the absolutely scandalized faces they both turn on him. When he bursts into laughter, Nathan looks relieved, but Audrey simply looks curious, eyes squinting just so, and Duke knows he is in trouble.

            “We can’t, can we?” she asks, barely loud enough to be heard over the pleasant murmur of the setting crowd. “Have sex… here.” She motions to the fire and festival around them, music like a heartbeat in the night air.

            “No!” Nathan squawks at the same time as Duke says: “We wouldn’t be the only ones.”

            That is, Duke thinks while watching Audrey turn this information over in her head, part of the reason he has always enjoyed this particular festival, part of the reason he has taken them so far from home instead of celebrating in Haven. Outside of the music and food and drink and fun, there is a sense of openness, a freedom born of being surrounded by so much love; love of one another, of the season and the sun, the fire and the moon.

            “But no,” Duke continues, reaching out to take Nathan’s hand and not letting go when Nathan twitches in surprise. “No sex by the bonfire this year. Maybe next year.”

            “Next year,” Nathan echoes, dragging his attention back to Duke. His eyes go a little wide as he realizes what he’s just said. _Next year_ is a very long time away, a very long time which they can plan for now.

            Duke smiles and tugs Nathan closer, the fingers of his free hand finding the back of Nathan’s neck to pull him into a kiss. Nathan sinks into it with a soft sigh as soon as their lips touch, not deterred in the least by their public surroundings. Duke is pretty sure that if he could get them to a quiet corner of the festival, sex wouldn’t be quite as off the table as Nathan seems to think, but Duke meant it when he told them next year.

            Nathan breaks the kiss first, both of them a little breathless, to find Audrey grinning at them both. “I’d tell you to get a room, except we apparently don’t have to,” she says, clearly delighting in the blush that warms both their cheeks. Duke’s not sure it’s all due to embarassment, either.

            He clears his throat, getting hold of himself, and motions away from the roaring bonfire. “I could stand to find a room,” he says, voice rough.

            “Yeah,” Nathan agrees, reaching out to pull Audrey in closer to them, kissing the top of her head. She curls herself into their sides, kissing each of them in turn, and then surrenders to the better sense of going back to the _Rouge_ for the rest of the solstice.

  
  


* * *

  


            Golden sunlight wakes Duke the next morning, peeking over the edge of the _Rouge_ as the sun stretches its rays across the bay. They’re practically buried under all the bedding on the boat, still out on the open deck where they’d fallen asleep last night. Though the early morning air rolling in off the ocean is chilly, Nathan is practically a furnace between Duke and Audrey. Duke smiles to see Audrey curled into it like a cat. Nathan stirs just enough to make sure Duke is okay before he closes his eyes and pulls Audrey a little closer.

            Duke shifts so that he can murmur near Nathan’s ear, so as not to wake Audrey when he speaks. “Breakfast on shore or here on deck?”

            Nathan makes a noise that could be mistaken for a response, and then pulls his arm from around Audrey, and flops over halfway onto Duke, taking the impromptu covers up over their heads. Duke wraps his arms around Nathan, muffling his laughter in Nathan’s shoulder before peppering his jaw with kisses.

            Audrey protests the many sudden movements with an it’s-too-early whine, and they turn on her instead, Duke wriggling over the top of both of them to lay along her other side. She squeals and squirms as they kiss her awake until she manages to gasp out to tell them to stop, she’s up, she’s awake. Nathan gives her one more kiss on the tip of her nose and then sits up and rubs his hands through his hair.

            “Shore,” he declares, and smiles when both Duke and Audrey give him confused looks. “You asked where we should have breakfast. Food was good last night.”

            Duke gives a little shrug as Audrey sits as well. “Some of the stands have local shops,” he suggests, and he makes no effort to hide the sly smile that follows. “There’s one with good pancakes, if you like that sort of thing.”

            Nathan rolls his eyes, and tugs the blanket off of Duke, exposing him to the chilly morning air. Duke just grins, giving a languid stretch, naked and golden and inviting, and Audrey and Nathan both take a moment to appreciate the view before Duke rolls to his feet to head for the cabin. Behind him, Nathan and Audrey pull up most of the bedding - either for the coverage it provides them in the absence of their clothing or because it has to come inside anyway - and follow at his heels.

            It takes them longer to get dressed than is strictly necessary with Audrey’s hands sneaking over every disappearing patch of bare skin. Nathan steals kisses and gives a stellar attempt at turning breakfast into brunch when he backs Duke up against the door frame and starts undoing the buttons Duke’s just done. They are interrupted by the grumble of Nathan’s belly, and the heat dissolves into pleasant chuckles.

            Breakfast is a lengthy affair and Nathan ends up being the only one to actually order pancakes. The server says _stuffed banana bread french toast_ and Audrey doesn’t hesitate to order. Duke orders some as well, as it’s part of the reason he steered them to this venue, and it turns out to be the some of the richest food they’ve eaten in a long time. Audrey is less impressed with the freshly-squeezed orange juice than she ought to be, and confides that the juice at the _Gull_ is better.

            As they meander back through the town, Audrey comments that everything is so _different_ after the festival, by the light of day. This place, just hours before, had been a place of magic and music, lustrous and eternal, a place apart from time. Now, it is a sleepy, seaside town full of sleepy coastal townsfolk going about their business as usual. Here, a sign advertising the solstice festival, there a stray streamer from a booth which no longer exists except in memory, reminders of what was.

            “It’s a little like Haven,” she says quietly, soaking in the last sight of the town as Duke nudges the _Rouge_ back out to sea. “A little bit magic if you know when to look.”

            “Not anymore,” Duke reminds her, and she laughs.

            “Maybe there’s no more aether,” she says, eyes bright. “But there’s magic there, still. The kind of magic that remembers what suffering feels like, and how to heal it. The kind of magic that calls people back to it no matter where they are. The kind that brings stray cats to restaurants in the middle of the night.”

            Duke smiles. Maybe she’s right, he thinks as he sets their bearings toward home. He’s not sure it counts as _magic_ , but he knows that whatever it is that brought them all to the same place, whatever gave them the opportunity to have _this_ with one another, he is grateful for it.

  


* * *

 

 

            They’re only a few hours out from Haven when Duke drops anchor in deep water. Both Nathan and Audrey give him curious looks, because the sun has only just begun to sink below the horizon. He smiles and stretches and kisses each of them on the nose before heading to the galley with only a soft _dinner plans_ left behind as an explanation.

            They trail behind him with piqued interests and spend the next half an hour finding all the ways to be exactly where they shouldn’t. Still, Duke manages to get dinner made, and even manages to get dessert put into the fridge to set, and they sit down to eat with smiles all around. There is a different feel to this meal than there has been the rest of the trip. The bittersweet sort of feeling that always comes at the end of a vacation clings to their words and gestures and they savor every moment as carefully as they do the food.

            After dinner and dessert are both only memories, they all retire to the deck to watch the stars begin to twinkle into existence. They forego the beach chairs they’ve mostly used so far in favor of sprawling out on the floor so they can get closer, enough to feel each others warmth, feel heartbeats under fingertips. Duke feels the moment Audrey slips from muzzy consciousness into sleep, feels her go lax against his side, fingers uncurling just a little from where they’ve threaded into his sweater.

            “Parker,” Nathan murmurs, must have felt the same thing as Duke did.

            Audrey stirs in their arms and scrunches her nose. “I fell asleep,” she says, and both boys rumble amused noises of agreement. She sighs and heaves herself into a semi-upright position. “I’m not sleeping on the floor again.”

            With that declaration, she struggles to her feet and makes noises of reprimand at them when they move to follow. Both boys settle back down with concerned looks which she answers with a smile.

            “I’m going to take a shower, _alone_ ,” she explains when their expressions brighten. “I just want to rinse off before bed, you don’t have to get up yet.”

            They watch her go and as soon as she is out of sight, Nathan sits up again. Duke keeps his place, looking at him while curled almost like a cat amongst the bedding they’d laid down out here. Nathan doesn’t look back, just stares upward into the sky, letting the evening darken above them.

            Nathan is, Duke thinks, beautiful most of the time, but there is something special about seeing a moonlit Nathan under a blanket of stars. This is how it used to be with the two of them, back before things had gotten so complicated. Before the Troubles, before they ran on opposite sides of the law, before college and boats and life. Back when they were just Nathan and Duke on the hood of the Bronco with all of infinity above them in the sky and the rest of their lives to live out all the things they had ever dreamed about doing together.

            The memories must hit Nathan the same way as well, because he shakes himself and clambers to his feet. Duke tracks his path all the way to the edge of the boat, until he folds his arms on the railing so he can stare out over the placid waters. Duke waits to see if he’ll return, if he just needs a moment to breathe, but when he gives no indication that he’ll come back, Duke follows him as he has always done.

            Nathan doesn’t seem surprised when Duke leans on the railing next to him. He doesn’t speak, either, and for a little while Duke listens to the lap of the ocean and the groan of the _Rouge’s_ pipes as Audrey showers, and the sound of Nathan drawing breath sure and steady beside him. It feels good, feels _alive_ and _connected_.

            Duke blows out a soft breath and looks over at Nathan. “Y’okay?” He’s not sure that’s what he meant to ask, but it is what comes out and he doesn’t take it back.

            “Dunno,” Nathan answers, more truthfully than Duke expected. He sighs as well and glances sidelong at Duke before dropping his gaze. “Thank you. For taking us out like this. I think I needed it.”

            Heat flushes at Duke’s cheeks at the surprising admission, and Duke ducks his head a little as he looks away. “I think we all did.”

            “Yeah,” Nathan agrees in the exact tone of voice that means he doesn’t agree exactly. Duke lets the word stretch out between them for a long moment before Nathan finally adds: “But I… I think needed it, to let go.”

            “Let go?” Duke asks, heart leaping into his throat. He knows Nathan isn’t talking about leaving either one of them, but Duke’s been hurt too many times not to let that fear slip in for just an instant.

            “I _hated_ this boat,” Nathan says quietly, carefully not looking at Duke. “I was _so angry_ that she’d taken you away from me, and I couldn’t let go of that even after you came back.” He splays one hand wide on the railing like he can feel the whole boat with one touch if he tries. “Don’t know how many times I wished you’d never won her, thought maybe if you hadn’t, you’d’ve stayed.”

            “I wouldn’t have stayed,” Duke admits, shifting to touch his shoulder to Nathan’s.

            “I know that,” Nathan says, pressing back into the touch. “Now I do, but I didn’t. Thought you wanted out because you got her, and I just couldn’t…” He trails off, leaves it at that, and Duke knows him well enough to be able to finish that sentence a hundred different ways, knows Nathan means every one of them.

            Everything Nathan has yet to say charges the air between them, so Duke simply waits, lets Nathan figure out which words he wants and which he doesn’t. The sound of waves stroking the hull fills the air, echoing up into the clear night sky. He hears Audrey’s feather-soft footfalls as she checks on them, but she subsides back to the bedroom without interrupting. Eventually Nathan shifts and lets out a puff of breath that sounds like a decision.

            “Thought you left _me_ ,” he says, swallowing whatever else he’d decided to say when he glances over at Duke.

            “I left _Haven_ ,” Duke corrects, leaning to touch his forehead to Nathan’s. “You and I were… well, even outside of that, there was so much else I needed to get away from. I needed space to sort myself out.”

            “Yeah,” Nathan agrees, breath sounding shallow, and Duke pulls back to look at him. “Didn’t get what that meant ‘til now. Didn’t… realize I couldn’t breathe until I could, ‘n now we’re going back again.”

            His expression mirrors how Duke felt trying to explain the difference in mint plants, and it dawns on Duke what’s really going on. The distance afforded by travel has let Nathan see a bigger picture than he’d been able to see in years, and it has occurred to him that there is a whole entire world outside of Haven that isn’t ending anytime soon. They are no longer in danger, no longer trapped, no longer _fated_. More importantly, they are no longer responsible for keeping anyone alive against impossible odds because there are no longer impossible odds.

            They could go anywhere, do anything, and Haven would be _just fine_.

            The _choice_ whether or not to go home has made the safety of their home _real_.

            It has made _their_ safety real, and Duke knows exactly how that feels.

            “Come on,” he says, taking Nathan’s hand and tugging him toward the bedroom.

            Nathan follows without argument and in the glitter of starlight Duke can see his eyes glistening. He doesn’t resist when Duke pulls his shirt over his head, presses his nose into Duke’s shoulder as Duke undoes the button on his jeans and slides them down his legs. Audrey sets her book down and scoots to make room on the bed as Duke nudges Nathan onto it, pulling back the covers so he can throw them over all three of them at once.

            Duke answers Audrey’s look of concern with five simple words he knows she will understand better than anyone: “We get to go home.”

            She makes a muted noise of understanding as she wraps herself around Nathan and buries her face in the crook of his neck. “Feels good, doesn’t it? _Home_.”

            Nathan laughs, and it doesn’t sound quite as broken as he looked moments ago. Duke curls along Nathan’s other side, throws and arm over him so that he can touch both of them. When Nathan finally relaxes, draws in a deep, slow breath, Duke can practically feel him letting go of the past to set his eyes upon the future. It’s a good feeling, loosening something within Duke as well, something he hadn’t known was waiting for this moment, waiting for all three of them to finally be on the same page.

            Waiting for all of them to not just _know_ that they were safe but to really _feel_ it.

            Waiting, Duke thinks, for their very own new beginning, together.


End file.
